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COEXRIGHT DEPOSm

THE CREED OF DEUTSCHTUM

Books by Morton Prince

THE NATURE OF MIND AND
HUMAN AUTOMATISM

THE DISSOCIATION OF A
PERSONALITY

THE UNCONSCIOUS

THE CREED
OF DEUTSCHTUM

AND OTHER WAR ESSAYS, INCLUDING

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE KAISER

With a Foreword by MARQUIS OKUMA

(late prime minister of japan)

MORTON PRINCE

BOSTON

RICHARD G. BADGER

THE GORHAM PRESS

COPTRIGHT, 1918, BY RiCHARD G. BaDGER

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Made in the United States of America

The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A.

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CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER , _

I. THE CREED OF DEUTSCHTUM ... 9

II PRUSSIAN MILITARISM AND A LASTING

PEACE ^^

The Demand for the Suppression of

Prussian Militarism 69

What Is Prussian Militarism? ... 74

Prussian Militarism in Practice . . 78
Peace by Negotiation Impossible at

This Time ^^

A Conflict Between Two Principles of

Government ^"

III. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE KAISER . 103

Foreword by Marquis Okuma ... 107

Introduction by Professor Shiosawa . Ill

The Kaiser's Antipathy 11'7

The Kaiser's Prerogatives .... 131

The Kaiser's Divine Right Delusion . 134

The German Autocracy and the Army 142

The Kaiser's Sentiments 145

The Kaiser's Self-Regarding Senti-
ments

Aims of the German Democracy . . . 157
The Real Cause of the Kaiser's Antip-
athy 16^

The Kaiser's Antipathy an Obsession

and a Defense Reaction .... 169

The Moral ^'^^

4 CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

IV. THE AMERICAN VERSUS THE GERMAN

VIEWPOINT 175

French and German Lessons at the

Front 175

Songs the Germans Sing . ... 177

An American Viewpoint .... 178

Scores Were Shot Down .... 181

Shot to Defend Sister 182

Attitude of German Officers . . . 187

Why Was Louvain Burned.'* . . . 188

General von Boehn's View .... 190

Richard Harding Davis' Views . . 192

Awful Price Belgians Paid .... 193

Other Pictures Drawn 195

The German Ideal of Government . 199

The German Policy of Terrorism . . 201

Proclamations Threaten .... 203

The Evidence of German Soldiers'

Diaries . 206

The American Way by Contrast . . 208

War as Taught by the German War

Book 210

The Policy of Destroying Merchant-
men 212

The Prostitution of Intellectual Hon-
esty 214

V. THE AMERICAN CONSCIENCE, 1914-15 219

VI. THE DISINTEGRATION OF AN IDEAL . 235

The Ideal 235

The Contrast 252

CONTENTS 5

CHAPTER PAGE

VII. THE WAR— A TEST OF THE GERMAN

THEORY OF MILITARISM .... 265

VIII. A WORLD CONSCIOUSNESS AND FUTURE

PEACE 285

The Individual Consciousness . , . 285

Personality as Evolved by the Creative
Force of the Experiences of Life . 288

The Subconscious as the Dynamic
Source of Conduct 291

The Collective Consciousness . . . 293

Types of Collective Consciousness . 294

The Development of a Collective Con-
sciousness 294

A Common Meaning to Ideals Essential
to a Collective Consciousness . . 297

The Social Consciousness as the Regu-
lator of Society . . ... . . 303

A World Consciousness 308

THE CREED OF DEUTSCHTUM

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE PHILADELPHIA
MEDICAL SOCIETY, OCTOBER 19, 1917.

THE CREED OF
DEUTSCHTUM

THE thoughts upon this great war and the
impressions that I have brought back from
two visits to the battle front, have not
had so much to do with the material as-
pects of the struggle — interesting as these are —
as with the conflicting ideals for which the war is
being fought on each side. Let me premise by
saying that every visitor to England and France
and to the western battle front has returned im-
pressed by the gigantic scale on which this war is
being waged and by the huge military and indus-
trial organizations by means of which it is carried
on. Indeed war is now a quasi business, organized
on a colossal scale, employing millions of workers
as well as soldiers and embracing nearly every
sphere of human activity.

Leaving aside the mobilization of the factories,
the mines, the railroads and shipping, the food sup-
plies and hundreds of industries of all sorts, the
spectacle at the front of the vast numbers of trans-
port lorries, the hospitals with their million of

10 The Creed of Deutschturn

beds, the commissariat supplying millions of men,
the air service with its thousands of flying ma-
chines, the extraordinarily developed intelligence
service with its balloons and lookout posts besides
its special aeroplanes and personnel; the telegraph
and telephone service, the engineer service build-
ing and caring for the railroads and motor roads
and pipe lines for water — the spectacle of all this
and much besides staggers the imagination.

All these material aspects of the war are absorb-
ingly instructive, but to my mind the most impres-
sive thing, of which one soon becomes aware, is
not material. It is the spirit of France and Eng-
land. It is the national consciousness of the two
nations. It is the unity of thought and common
ideal which permeates the collective consciousness
of the peoples. This ideal is the driving force
which impels them to go on, and on, and on, and
make no peace until the common ideal has achieved
its end.

You have noticed that every squeal for peace has
come out of Germany. Every day we hear a new
squeal. But we hear not a sound from England or
from France. There one is conscious only of a grim
determination to go on until the final object is
achieved. That object is something over and be-
yond the restoration of territory, and even beyond
restitution for wanton destruction; and beyond in-
demnities.

Belgium must be restored : Yes.

Serbia — Yes.

The Creed of Deutschtum 11

Northern France — Yes.

Alsace-Lorraine — Yes, if possible.

The liberation of all the countries now overrun —
Yes.

All this as a matter of course. But all this, or
most of it, they could have had long before this if
they had been content with going back to the status
quo ante.

These objects omit the one supreme and final
aim that will satisfy the aspirations of the national
consciousness of England and France. This aim
is a lasting peace, and therefore the attainment of
that end which will guarantee a lasting peace. This
end has been named by Lloyd George and Asquith
and Bonar Law and Balfour and all the leading
statesmen of the Allies as the destruction of Prus-
sian militarism.

"Prussian militarism" is a convenient, short po-
litical expression, easily understood and useful as
a political slogan. But it is far from being accu-
rate. It is far from representing the meaning of
the real thing which has menaced the peace and
liberty of the world for over forty years. Prussian
militarism is only one manifestation of that thing,
only the means which that thing employs to ac-
complish its purposes.

The real thing is a mystic ideal of the German
people called Das Deutschtum.f

I think that if we would understand France — if
we would understand what France fears, and what

t Sometimes translated "Germanism."

12 The Creed of Deutschtum

England fears; what gives those countries the for-
titude to go on and refuse to make peace until their
supreme object is attained, we must grasp the full
meaning of this Thing.

I have asked many responsible people in France
why they are unwilling to make peace, and their
answer has always been the same. It is the menace
of Das Deutschtum; not formulated in that term
it is true, but in the facts that it stands for. It is •
thoroughly realized that so long as this menace per-
sists there can be no lasting peace.

We have heard a great deal of Prussian militar-
ism, and of the military oligarchy and of the Junk-
er class, and they alone have been held responsible
for this war. But we have heard little in the sphere
of practical politics of Deutschtum (or "German-
ism") as a creed, as a mystic paranoid ideal which
has permeated the consciousness of a whole nation,
and we have heard little of one article of that creed,
the so-called Mission of the German people. Few
Americans, probably, have grasped what the Ger-
mans mean by Deutschtum.

I do not mean that much has not been written
on the subject. On the contrary, the English and
French war literature contains numerous brilliant
essays and books exhaustively dealing with the sub-
ject; and there is a complete literature in German
which has been the source from which most of our
information has been derived. But in political and
war speeches and the responsible statements of gov-
ernment officials little reference has been made to

The Creed of Deutschtum 13

these dominating ideals of the German people which
are the real underlying force behind Prussian mili-
tarism. As they are the dominating ideals of the
national consciousness of Germany, so it is the dom-
inating ideal of the national consciousness of Eng-
land and of France to destroy them.

We must keep in mind that Deutschtum repre-
sents the common ideals not only of the ruling
classes, of the University professors, historians, sci-
entists, philosophers, of all the intellectuals, but of
the people at large. And it is the force — a very
specific and impelling force — which has urged the
German people and nation onward in their mad
drive for world dominion, and for this purpose to
make use of Prussian militarism.

It is impossible to define Deutschtum in a
phrase. The word is untranslatable excepting per-
haps by ''Germandom/' which is inadequate. Das
Deutschtum is the national consciousness of Ger-
many so far as it pertains to conceptions of the
state, of its power and will, of the character and
destiny of the German race, and to the aspirations
and political creeds of the j)eople. It also involves
an ideal of duty and obligations owed to the state
by every citizen of the Empire. Hence it has been
called "a state of mind." It is a system of ideals of
the social and political consciousness of the people

14 The Creed of Deutschtum

as well as of the ruling classes. It comes well nigh
to being a social insanity.

Deutschtum or Germandom, then, is a totality of
ideas and sentiments, a system of mental, moral and
political ideas organized about two closely con-
nected central ideas, that of the state and that of
the German people as a super-race, superior to all
others.

In this system there have become evolved and
organized a number of sentiments (including na-
tional policies ) which have been postulated as ideals
of this national consciousness. The driving force
of these ideals has made the German nation what
it is and given it the will to impose its dominion
over the rest of the world and use whatever methods
it saw fit regardless of the opinions of the rest of
mankind. And out of these postulates there has
developed a creed — a creed of Deutschtum. One
may say that Deutschtmn as a whole is the political
creed of the German people, which like the Apos-
tolic and other religious creeds embraces a series of
postulates. But each postulate dogmatically ex-
presses or is based upon the lust and the self-glori-
fication of the German people.

Through these self-centred ideals Germany has,
like a paranoiac, interpreted other nations, other
peoples, and its own relations and obligations to
them, whether in the domain of national rights and
morals, or international law and treaties.

If one would seek the origin and evolution of
Deutschtum we must go back a century or more to

The Creed of Deutschtum 15

the times of Frederick the Great and the immedi-
ately post-Napoleonic period. For all students of
Germany are agreed that the root principles and
philosophy of Deutschtum date hack to the philos-
ophers Hegel and Kant and Fichte, whose teach-
ings have impregnated German thought — not only
that of the so-called intellectuals, but of captains of
industry, statesmen and even military writers.

But it is enough for us to take German thought as
of the present day just as we find it. And as finally
evolved all are equally agreed that German ideals,
political, moral and military, as manifested by this
war, are due to the force of the teachings, in the
first place, of the political historian Treitschke and
the unbalanced philosopher Nietzsche; :j: and in the
second place to the writings and preachings of a
perfect swarm of university professors and other
intellectuals who, as propagandists, have deluged
the German people with their elaborations and sec-
ondary rationalizations of their masters' teachings.
A philosophy runs through all this mass of thoughf ,
and it is a fact, that needs to be considered, that
in no country has philosophy so permeated and de-
termined the thought of the people, other than the
professional philosophers, and the national con-
sciousness as in Germany. That seems incredible
to us practical Americans.

It will also seem incredible to many who do not
know Germany that the scholastic classes — univer-
sity professors and professional teachers generally,

t He finally became insane.

16 The Creed of Deutschtum

should have such an influence in shaping German
thought and the views and policies of government.
But it must be remembered that the German sys-
tem of education is organized to that end. In the
first place, the higher schools and universities are
not only under the control of the state, but, as Pro-
fessor Dewey,* of Columbia, well says, are a part
of state life, and the state takes a hand in the selec-
tion of the teachers in subjects that have a direct
bearing upon political policies.

In the second place the professors, being
appointees of the state, are paid henchmen just as
much as are the appointees of Tammany in New
York. They and their subordinates have got to shout
for the state and its apotheosis, as much as any po-
litical appointee, or off goes his head, or, at least,
off goes any chance for preferment if he hopes to be
a professor. And in the third place, one of the chief
functions, from the State's point of view, of the
universities is the preparation of men to become fu-
ture state officials, members of the bureaucracy.
We must not forget that the legislative body plays
little part in the German government ; it is hardly
included in the State as such. The State is the Ad-
ministration, responsible to the Kaiser alone; and
this bureaucracy practically derives its membership
from the universities. University teaching, there-
fore, shapes the thought of the Administration, the
Kaiser, the State. Its philosophy has become inbred
in the state ideals and the national consciousness.

* German Philosophy and Politics.

The Creed of Deutschtum 17

American and ]:Cnglish professors have some mod-
esty in inflicting their views on the world and do
not consider it one of their functions to instruct the
pubhc on pohtical questions. Indeed the public
would not lend a very serious ear to their views, with
the exception of those of a few distinguished repre-
sentatives who can be counted almost on the fingers
of the two hands. But in Germany the case is quite
different. There the professors and their tribe have
no such modesty. Indeed it is one of their functions
to lecture the public as well as their students, and the
public not only listens but looks to them for instruc-
tion. The professors are the educators of Germany.
And this is true not only of the university men but
of the so-called Intellectuals generally. The con-
sequence has been that during the last twenty or
thirty years a host of such men have produced a per-
fect deluge of books and pamphlets and articles on
the various phases of Deutschtum. They have
preached and hammered into the ears of the German
people the doctrines of "Pan-Germanism," — "mor-
ality of war," and "world dominion" and "power,"
and "the sanctity of the state" and the "chosen peo-
ple" and the "Divine mission of Germany" and all
that sort of thing. Since 1897 this has been partic-
ularly resonant, because in that year this preaching
and hammering was organized into a propaganda
which has been going on ever since. Two organi-
zations were formed : one directed by the professors
with a publication called Der Kampf um das
Deutschtum {The struggle for Germandom) ; the

18 The Creed of Deutschtum

other, called the Pan- Germanic League^ with a pub-
lication of that name, directed by a noisy group of
men who inflamed public opinion by meetings,
pamphlets, and articles. This latter became the
Pan-Germanic party.

Among various other Pan-German organizations
the Deutsche s Bund was formed in 1894 with two
important newspapers, the Deutsche Tageszeitung
and the Deutsche Zeitung as organs. Prince von
Billow, former Chancellor of the Empire, who
dates the arrival of Germany as a world power
from 1897, has given much credit to the Pan-Ger-
man League for its success in "stimulating" and
"keeping alive" the sentiments taught in the schools
and universities. All taught the various doctrines
of Deutschtum until they became ingrained in the
national consciousness of Germany, and the people
became puffed up with self-glorification and came
to believe they were the "chosen people" and had a
mission to extend German ideas, German kultur,
German dominion over the face of the earth; and
many indeed to believe that they were called upon
by God to regenerate the world. The result has
been a most interesting sociological and psychologi-
cal phenomenon — a quasi social insanity — a sys-
tematized herd delusion affecting a whole people.
And the Delusion has become the national con-
sciousness of Germany.

Unfortunately the rest of the world did not take
all this as seriously as should have been done. But
since the war began attention has been directed to

The Creed of Deutschtum 19

the study of these German teachings and the doc-
trines of Deutschtum. They have been collected by
English and French writers and quoted extensively
in many books and pamphlets, f

After the first shock which the unsophisticated
receives they make dreary reading, for they are
but reiteration and reiteration of the same ideas dif-
fering only in the degree of emotion and extrava-

t The following are sufRcient: Collection de Documents sur le
Pangennanisme; public sous le direction de Mr. Charles Andler.
(Les Origines du Pangermanisme, 1800 k 1888; Le Pangermanisme
Continental sous Guillaunie II, de 1888 a 1914.)

Gems (?) of German Thought; Compiled by William Archer. Dou-
bleday. Page & Co., 1917. (This collection contains 501 Gems, ar-
ranged by subjects. As the author says, it could easily have been
made 1001 Gems.)

German Ideals in 1917 and in 1914; W Andre Chevrillon. (The
author discusses briefly the ideals with quotations from and refer-
ences to a large number of German writers.)

Out of Their Own Mouths [compiled by Munroe Smith]. D. Apple-
ton, 1917. (A large collection of "utterances" arranged in accord-
ance with the vocations of the writers — "German Rulers, Statesmen,
Savants, Publicists, Dramatists, Poets, Businessmen, Party Leaders
and Soldiers.

Juges par eux-mem.es ; Paris. Berger-Levrault, 1916.

Das annexiomstische Deutschland; "A collection of documents pub-
lished or circulated since August 4, 1914, in Germany"; by S. Grum-
hach; Paj'or & Co., Lausanne, 1917. (Professor Munroe Smith gives
a resume of these in a review in The Political Science Quarterly for
September, 1917.)

The Kaiser; edited by Asa Don Dickenson, 1914 (contains numerous
classic quotations from the Kaiser's utterances).

The Kainer's Speeches; Translated and edited by Wolf von Schier-
brand, &c. Harper & Brothers, 1903.

My Ideas and Ideals. Kaiser Wilhelm II. Boston, John W. Luce
& Co. 1914. (A collection of gems from the Kaisei''s utterances.)

The War Lord; by J. M. Kennedy: Duffield & Co. 1914 (Another
collection of the same).

The German Emperor as Shown in His Public Utterances; by
Christian Gault. Charles Scribner's Sons. 1915.

20 The Creed of Deutschtum

grance of delusion. They are, however, instructive
and every American should read them. In no other
way can one obtain an insight into German thought
and understand Germany. They are the teachings
of professors, and scientists, and publicists, and in-
dustrial magnates and ministers of the Gospel, and
military writers, and philosophers, and historians,
and public men, and ethnologists, and travelers,
and journalists, and poets, and what not. No won-
der the German people believe in Das Deutschtum!
Under such constant hammering the thickest skull
would be penetrated at last.

A journalist has thus sarcastically but accurately
summed up this propaganda for Das Deutschtum:

For a generation before the war modern Germany trav-
estied Bismarck's calculated violence while incapable of his
wisdom. Every sedentary professor, puffed up with
swipes and imitation, imagined himself to be a son of iron
and a potential man of blood. More and more the speech
and writing of the whole nation became heavy with pas-
sionate words and menacing metaphor. Swords, mailed
fists, and hammers jangled in this clanking vocabulary,
but, on the whole, the hammers had it. The poet's word
that one must be 'either hammer or anvil' was repeated
like a creed. Wagner, the race-worshipping historians,
the two kinds of Pan-Germans, idealist and materialist,
and a theatrical Kaiser in a helmet, made mythology a
worse agent of delirium than alcohol.

Ill

I have no intention of covering again this dreary,
if shocking, ground of German Ideals"; I want
only to restate one or two of their postulates which

The Creed of Deutschtuvi 21

are fundamental and from which as premises are
derived the most dangerous dehision in the Creed
of Deutschtum — dangerous for the future peace of
the world. These postulates are the I, IV and IX
articles of the creed which itself may be formulated
without doing violence to the claims of the Ger-
mans themselves as follows:

Ten Articles of the Creed of Deutschtum

I. I believe in the apotheosis of the State, person-
ified as the supreme Will and idealized as Power,
above morality, treaties and international law;
and I believe a State when without physical Power
ceases to be a State and becomes a community
without rights.
II. I believe in militarism as the Pillar of the State
and the means by which the Will and Power
of the State shall overcome all resistance and
rule over all other wills and extend the sover-
eignty of Germany and Germanism.

III. I believe that war is sacred and moral; and that
f rightfulness is a justified method by which mil-
itarism may effect the aims of Germany when
resisted.

IV. I believe the German race to be a biologically su-
per-race and the Salt of the Earth, the Chosen of
God.
V. I believe there are no inherent, inalienable and
natural rights of mankind which the State is
obliged to respect and which are reserved to the
people as in democracies.

VI. I believe it to be the duty of every individual to
subordinate his will to the will of the State, which
is above the will of private and public opinion and
not responsible to the latter.

And I believe that every German is a citizen-
soldier obligated to work and fight in his own

22 The Creed of Deutschtum

sphere of activity, not for his own private inter-
ests but for German greatness and to propagate
the German idea throughout the world; to the
end that Germany may in every way — pohtically,
economically, industrially, intellectually and mili-
tarily dominate all other races and peoples.
VII. I believe that Germany has a mission to extend
her territories and power at the expense of less
meritorious and inferior people — as all other peo-
ple are.
VIII. I believe the German State collaborates with
God, and in the subjugation of weaker people
is carrying out the Will of God.
IX. I believe the State and the German people have
a mission to extend German kultur and German
ideas throughout the people of the earth and
thus regenerate the world.
X. I believe the Western ideas of Democracy, Liber-
ty and Liberalism — the "declarations of Rights"
of the great Western nations (particularly the
American Declaration of 1774 and the French
Declaration of 1789), the American doctrine of
"inherent and inalienable rights" reserved to the
people and which no government can take away
— are antiquated, effete and harmful; I believe
the present war is a conflict between German
ideals and Western Democratic ideals ; and the
new Gospel of the autocratic German State is
to supersede the liberal gospel of liberty and gov-
ernment by the people of the Western Democ-
racies.

Some of these articles are secondary "rationaiiz-
ings" from the fundamental ideals. I have in
mind here only to amplify the conception of the
State (I), the idea of the Germans being a super-
race (IV) , and particularly the Mission of the Ger-
man people (IX).

The Creed of Deutschtum 23

Article I. The German Conception of the State

The conception of the State as Power, and hav-
ing a lot of other metaphysical attributes, has been
repeated over and over again in parrot fashion so
many times that it has become a mystic article of
faith. Its very mysticism lends to it force and ease
<jf proselytizing, as is the case with a religious dog-
ma, which this metaphysical notion of State has
very nearly become. The phrase formulated by
Treitschke "The State is Power" has become a
shibboleth. The idea dates back to Lasson, who
v/rote in 1868, and perhaps it is of earlier date for
all I know. But Treitschke furnished this formula,
which tickles the ear. It is made up of words which
severally have meaning, but when incorporated in
a phrase have no meaning at all. One might as
well say that "a civic community is a funded debt"
or, "a university is an autocratic will." Yet the
formula has intoxicated Germany into a blind wor-
ship of Power and the creation of militarism as the
pillar on which that power shall rest; it has deluded
them into elevating might above everything else in
the world and inculcating the mystic belief that in
this worship of Power is the allegiance owed to the
State.

Then, amongst its other attributes, the State is
an entity, a mystic personality; it is the Absolute;
the sovereign in everything — morals, will, and
everything else. Some extremists would even en-
dow it with Divinity, "The State is God on earth,"

24 The Creed of Deutschtum

as Prof. Dewey of Columbia sums up the doctrine
of Hegel who said, "The march of God in history
is the cause of the existence of States." Indeed
"history is the movement, the march of God on
earth through time" (Dewey). Hence, as argued
by a German, to surrender any territory which Ger-
many has conquered in the present war would be
sacrilegious. In this political philosophy Germany
is conceived, as Professor Durkeim has phrased it,
as the highest terrestrial incarnation of divine
power.

These attributes are of practical importance be-
cause, for instance, from the dogmas of the sover-
eignty of the will and in morals are derived the
axioms that the State can break treaties and in-
ternational law when it wills, and that in war as
well as in peace, the State is above the laws of mor-
ality and humanity, which only apply to individ-
uals. The sovereignty of the will of the State nec-
essarily extends to public opinion. This kind of a
state, conceived of as a mystic personal entity, is
not, as in democracies, the expression of public
opinion but something apart from and above it. It
may or may not, as it pleases, take into considera-
tion the will of the people, or classes of the people.
Indeed there can scarcely be a will of the people,
for absolute obedience to the will of the State is
the highest duty of the citizens. There is perfect
freedom of opinion, but the duty of all is to obey.
This has a different significance from the obliga-
tion, in democracies, of every citizen to obey the

The Creed of Deutschtum 2,5

State. For in Democracies if the "State" adopts
methods, or pohcies, or morals, or behavior disap-
proved by the majority, out goes the "State," i. e.,
the administration, bag and baggage. Society gov-
erns.

The Kaiser once said, "There is no law but my
law; there is no will but my will," and the world
outside Germany first gasped at the audacity, and
then smiled at what it thought personal, swash-
buckling, autocratic arrogance. But in reality it
was only this German conception of the State, for
the Kaiser symbolized the State in his person. And,
similarly, his saying, "Considering myself as the
instrument of the Lord, and without heeding the
views and opinions of the day, I ^o my way," was
only another way of asserting, in accordance with
Articles I, V and VI of the Creed, that the will
of the State was superior to that of society.

This dogma that the State is power justifies the
invasion and rape of Belgium, because, of course
as logically follows, a State is a State only just so
far as it has power. "A so-called small state is
not a state at all, but only a tolerated community
which absurdly pretends to be a State." . . . "The
lesser states have rights only in so far as they pos-
sess a power of resistance that must be taken into
account." (Lasson.)

One ideal which has been of wonderful assistance
to the German Empire, both in its internal de-
velopment and in its policy of dominating other
peoples, has logically resulted from this mystic con-

26 The Creed of Deutschtum

ception of the State and the duty of obedience to
the will of the State. But it has had a most malign
influence upon the welfare of other peoples. It is
the ideal that every German, on the one hand, should
subordinate his private interests and rights to the
interests of the State, and, on the other, that as a
citizen soldier, he is obligated to work and fight in
his own sphere of activity to further the ideals and
policies and aggressions of the Fatherland — the
ideals of Das Deutschtum.

This ideal has been taught and fostered by the
State in the school and university until it has be-
come ingrained in the personality of every Ger-
man. It has been the motivating force underlying
the German propaganda in America and elsewhere,
and gives the real insidious meaning to the notorious
Delbriick law which claims a continuing allegiance
to the Fatherland of every German naturalized in
a foreign country. Mr. Kuno Francke, who until
very recently was Professor at Harvard Univer-
sity, has borne testimony to this devotion of every
German to the national conception of State and
the obligations that it entails. I shall have occasion
to quote him as a witness in several connections,
as he is one of the most conservative of Americans
of German birth and education and one who has
won the respect of the community because of his
refusal, out of a sense of duty to his adopted coun-
try, to join at the outset of the war the intriguing
group of German propagandists in this country of
which Miinsterberg and Dernberg were leaders.

The Creed of Deutschtum 27

Professor Francke, however, has appealed, some-
what naively, I think, for American approbation
of German ideals without an apparent thought that
those ideals which he lavishly extols can only shock
the American conscience. However that may be,
his testimony, as that of one who knows his Ger-
many, is of value. In regard to the solidarity of
German sentiment regarding the State and duties
of citizens he has said:

No doubt there never was a conception of the state
among any people from Avhich this moral and disciplinary
view was entirely absent. But not since Plato's time has
this view anywhere been a national force as truly vital
and all embracing as it has come to be in modern Prussia
and Germany. It has imbued the whole German people,
as no other people is imbued, with the spirit of national
service and national achievement. The modern German
mind instinctively^ refuses to accept any of the thousand
and one private activities that constitute the daily life
of a people as something really private and isolated. The
farmer and the miner, the factory hand and the sailor,
the business man and the preacher, the scholar and the
artist — they are all soldiers, soldiers for German great-
ness and progress ; and their spheres of activity, far apart
as they may seem from cacli other, are in reality on one
and the same level, t!ie level of the fight for making Ger-
many in every way, politically, economically, intellec-
tually, and morally — a self-supporting, self-reljnng, con-
spicuously healthy and conspicuously productive national
organism.*

Professor Francke, it is true, has adroitly nar-
rowed the conception of the State to "preeminently

* "The War— A Test of the German Theory of the State" (The
Problems and Lessons of the War: Clark University Addresses: G. P.
Putnam's Sons. 1916).

28 The Creed of Deutschtum

a moral agency superior to society," "its principal
mission" being "to raise the individuals that make
up society to a higher level of public consciousness
and energy." But the German "conception of the
state" is too well known to be concealed by this
camouflage. The solidarity of sentiment and mob-
ilization of the people is the point.

Article IV. The Germans a Super-Race

The inrooted belief that the German race is a
super-race is a cardinal article of the Deutschtum
creed. To justify this belief appeal has been made
to a mythical biological race-type (to which it is
claimed Germans alone belong) ; to heredity and an-
thropology, to history and legend, supported by the
achievements of the much vaunted German kultur.
The race-type has been claimed to be characterized
by blue eyes and blond hair and complexion ; and his-
torians and "race-biologists" have tried to show that
when men of genius have appeared in other nations
they were blonds and had blue eyes and therefore
were descendants of the German race.

Anthropologists and other scientists and so-called
"race-biologists" like Houston Chamberlain, have
not hesitated, as no greater biologist than Profes-
sor Jacques Loebf of the Rockefeller Institute has,
amongst others, pointed out, to misrepresent sci-
entific principles of heredity and evolution and put
forward a pseudo-science by which they have ap-

t Biology and War; Science, Jan. 26, 1917.

The Creed of DeutscJitum 29

pealed to the vanity, and captivated the self-esteem
of the people. Running through Pan-Germanic
literature one finds this idea of a super-race con-
stantly and frankly stated, or connoted, or assumed.
The following well known quotations from the
utterances of important people from the Kaiser
down are illustrative. They could be multiplied a
thousand fold ad nauseam.

We are the salt of the earth.

We are the chosen people.

Many are called but few are chosen.

We are of all the peoples, the most noble, the most
pure, destined before others to work for the highest
development of humanity.

Deutschland is above everything, above everything in
the world.

We are indubitably the most martial nation in the
world. . . .

We are the most gifted of nations in all the domains of
science and art. We are the best colonists, the best
sailors and even the best traders.

Germany is so far above and beyond all the other
nations that all the rest of the earth, be they who they
may, should feel themselves well cared for when they are
allowed to fight with the dogs for the crumbs that fall
from her table.

The Teutons are the aristocracy of Humanity.

Whosoever has the characteristics of the Teuton race
is superior . . . the cultural value of a nation is measured
by the quantity of Tcutonism it contains.

Immoral, of course, is a policy of power if it is em-
ployed, as amongst our enemies, to supplant the higher
German culture and morality by the much lower English,
French, or Russian culture (or lack of cultui*e).

30 The Creed of Deutschtum

The Teutons are the aristocracy of humanity; the
Latins, on the contrary, belong to the degenerate mob.

The German people is always right, because it is the
German people and numbers 87 million souls.

I want first to make it clear in what sense we may say,
without extravagance or the least trace of self -exaltation :
Germany is chosen, for her own good and that of other
nations, to undertake their guidance. Providence has
placed the appointed people, at the appointed moment,
ready for the appointed task.

Here in America even Prof. Francke has sung
the same swan song :

No unprejudiced observer of contemporary Euro-
pean affairs can get away from the fact that Germany
during the last fifty years has excelled all other coun-
tries in eagerness and momentum of private initiative.
The German schoolboy is more eager to learn, the Ger-
man university student is more firmly set upon independ-
ent research, the German workman has a higher level of
average intelligence, the German farmer is more scien-
tific in the cultivation of his soil, the German manufac-
turer is more ready to introduce new methods of produc-
tion, the German business man is more active in finding
new outlets for his goods, the German city administrator
is more keenly alive to civic improvements, the German
army and navy officer is more fully abreast with every
new experiment or device of military tactics, all Germans
are keyed up to a more intense, a more swiftly pulsating
manner of life than is the case in any one of the nations
with which Germany is now at war. All this intensity
of private initiative, I believe, is largely due to the im-
pelling force exerted upon the individual by the exalted
views instinctively held by all Germans regarding the
mission and the functions of the state.;]:

t Loc. cit.

The Creed of Deutschturn 31

Article IX. The Holy Mission of the German

People

This belief in race and kultur superiority would
be harmless and could be laughed at if it had not
led to calamitous consequences. From this belief
as one premise, and the mystic conception of the
State embodied in and taught by Das Deutschtum
as another, Germany has justified and stimulated
her lust for power and territory by the conclusion
that it is the mission of a superior race to extend
itself at the expense of inferior races over the rest
of the world. And, therefore, the German people
have this mission on this earth: to extend Deutsch-
tum over all other peoples, European, American
and Asiatic, to regenerate the world for the benefit
of humanity. It is the same idea that the white
races have, or have had as to their duties towards
uncivilized races — "the white man's burden." This
is the principal theme to which I wish to speak.

However grotesque the idea may appear, or how-
ever much of a moral insanity it may be regarded,
it is real — a real, vital, impelling force and must be
taken seriously. It is, indeed, the great sociological
obsessing delusion with which, to state it conserva-
tively, the dominant classes of Germany have be-
come affected. It has become a national ideal.

It is not always easy in analysing a psychologi-
cal obsession to determine the basic causal root ideas
from which the obsession has sprung. As a iiile,
every obsession has its roots in several antecedent

32 The Creed of Deutschtum

ideas which cooperate in the final mental state, and
around which others become systematized through
processes of rationalizing. Students of German-
dom, or "Germanism," therefore, differ somewhat
in their conclusions on this point. But my view
would be that the main psychological roots of this
obsession are to be found in the two premises I
have mentioned. But systematized with them in the
delusional belief and as cooperative ideas, reached
by the process of rationalization are the doctrines
of so-called Prussian militarism, the sanctity of war
and the justification of f rightfulness as necessary
methods.

In the light of this German state of mind with
all its obsessing ideas, and in the light of German
world-wide activities and propagandism, the idea
''Deutschland ilber Alles" so widely popularized in
song and speech, acquires a deeper and wider mean-
ing than military and economic sovereignty, or po-
litical sovereignty over Mittel-Europa and other
territories belonging to other people. It means in
addition that the German State is above all other
states, above international law, above morality,
above civil society, above all private rights, above
public opinion; and its will is above the will of
all individuals (singly or collectively) whose duty
is to obey. And it means that German ideas, Ger-
man Kultur, and everything that the German idea
stands for — world-power, world-markets, world-
kultur ("Weltmacht, Weltmarht, Welthultur') —
is to be extended throughout the world. As Prince

The Creed of Detttschtum 33

von Billow said, "Germany above everything, ev-
erything in the world." In this Deutschtum is
summed up.

This idea of a world mission is a very old one,
and has agitated German thought for a century at
least. At the commencement of the last century
the philosopher Fichte taught that "the Germans,
of all the modern nations, had received in special
measure into their safekeeping the seeds of human
perfection," and that it had been entrusted to them
to take the leading part in their development in
the great confederation of a new humanity. "Since
then," as Lavisse and Andler remark, "that mag-
nificent and mystic declaration of haughty pride
has been repeated a hundred times."* These au-
thors go on to point out that Heinrich Heine in
his time had announced that "Not only Alsace and
Lorraine, but the whole of France and Europe,
and the world itself will find salvation and become
ours. Yes, the whole world shall be German. I
have often dreamed of that mission of the univer-
sal domination of Germany when I was walking
in my reveries under the evergreen pines of my
fatherland."

A few quotations from more recent writers —
which I take from various collections and other
writings — will suffice to present the point of view:

He who does not believe in the Divine mission of
Germany had better hang himself, and rather to-day
than to-morrow. — H. S. Chamberlain.
* German Theory and Practice of War.

34 The Creed of DeutscTitum

We are indeed entrusted here on earth with a
doubly sacred mission: not only to protect Kultur . . .
against the narrow-hearted huckster-spirit of a thor-
oughly corrupted and inwardly rotten commercialism
(Jobbertum), but also to impart Kultur in its most au-
gust purity, nobility and glory to the whole of humanity,
and thereby contribute not a little to its salvation. Ein
Deut seller: Was uns der Krieg bringen muss.

Germany is the future of humanity — Pastor W. Leh-
mann.

God defend the noble cause of Deutschtum. There is
no other hope for the future of humanity. — H. S. Cham-
berlain, 1914.

We must vanquish, because the downfall of German-
ism would mean the downfall of humanity. — Pastor K.
Konig.

The German people must rise as a master-folk above
the inferior peoples of the colonies. — Grossdeutschland
und Mitteleuropa um das Jalir 1950, von einem Alldeuts-
cJien, 1895.

A great mission, scarcely comprehensible to other na-
tions, is unquestionably reserved for the whole German
character {Anlage) [which is defined as] the spirit of
pure humanity [and the mission as] the ennoblement
of the world. — Richard Wagner.

We hope that a great mission will be allotted to us
Germans . . . and this German mission is : to look after
the world {zu sorgen filr die Welt). Is it arrogance to
write such a phrase? Is it vanity in the disguise of
a moral idea? No, no, and again no. — Pastor G.
Traube, 1914.

It is my firm belief that the country to which God
gave Luther, Goethe, Bach, Wagner, Moltke, Bismarck
and William I. has still a great mission before it, to
work for the welfare of humanity. God has put us
to a hard probation . . . that we may the better serve
as His instrument for the saving of mankind; for we
were on the point of becoming untrue to our old-estab-

The Creed of Deutschtuin 35

lished nature (Wesen). He who has imposed upon us
this ordeal will also help us out of it. — Extract from
letter of an important personage, but unnamed, to H. S.
Chamberlain.

God has in Luther practically chosen the German peo-
ple, and that can never be altered, for is it not written
in Romans XI, 29, "For the gifts and calling of God
are without repentance." — Dr. Preuss.

We have entered into the war with hearts high and
pure, permeated with the aspirations of our national fu-
ture. That future we will fill with the blossoms of our
culture; it is assured to us by the desire that inspires
and unites all Germans to raise the world to full noble-
ness and perfection. — Historian Lamprecht.

Papacy and Empire are both Teutonic organizations
for domination, meant to subjugate the world. The Teu-
tonic race is called to circle the earth with its rule,
to exploit the treasures of nature and of human labor
power, and to make the passive races servient elements
in its cultural development. — Ludwig Woltmann.

The poet Wolf skehl declares :

To-day the question is that of the life or death of
European culture. Your accomplices sin against the
Holy Ghost of Europe. We make this war for all the
humanity of Europe. This war comes from God. The
divine clement in humanity is at stake.

Professor Mahling announced :

The hour of the world-mission of the German people
had struck. . . . Do we desire to be the hammer which
God wields.''

And thus we might go on quoting tediously and
almost indefinitely from German writers upholding
the mission of Germany in one or other of its
aspects.

And so there has developed this most dangerous

36 The Creed of Deutschtum

of the ideals of Das Deutschtum which postulates
the Mission (sometimes called "divine" and "holy")
of Germany to expand and regenerate the world
according to German ideas for the benefit of hu-
manity. It is not difficult to understand that some
extremists, holding that the State itself is divine,
or derives its power from God, or is the instrument
of God, or collaborator with God, believe that this
mission is a Holy Mission; and that the "chosen
people" are called "to live and expand at the ex-
pense of other less meritorious people." In other
words, as one American writer, Arthur Bullard,
phrases it, the Germans believe they have been
called of God to regenerate the world. Hence
"Deutschtum is a crusade" — a political religion.

How widely the notion of a holy authority for
this mission obtains there is no means of knowing.
But considering the mystic elevation of the state,
the almost universality of the belief that every Ger-
man is obligated to work for the power and domin-
ion of the state; that his highest duty is his duty
to the state, subordinating all private rights and
interests to that end, that the spread of Germanism
would be for the glory and power and advantage
of the state and the greatest good of humanity, the
spiritual force of this mission is almost as great
under the authority of the State as if it were uni-
versally felt to be one ordained by God as many
really do insist.

The notion of collaboration with God crops out
in nearly every speech, order or proclamation the

The Creed of Deutschtum 37

Kaiser makes, and takes on a fuller meaning when
the national ideal of a mission is kept in mind.
When we also bear in mind that the regeneration
of the world, which the mission of Deutschtum
would bring about, intends, the supplanting of the
ideals of the Eastern and the Western world with
the German ideals of the elevation of the state above
all moral laws and international law, of the deifica-
tion of Force, the deification of War as holy, the
sacred duty of violating treaties, the obligation to
use Frightfulness, and so on, we realize the danger
to lasting peace from this ideal of Deutschtum
which is the inspiring force of the German nation.

Notwithstanding all the extensive literature of
Deutschtum, the thoughtful reader will ask himself
to what extent its ideals have permeated the
masses as well as the classes of the German people.
It is very easy to overwork a fact as well as an
idea, and the tendency is to overstatement in po-
litical argument. The very fact that it was thought
necessary in Germany to organize such extensive
campaigns and to harangue the German people
about German and Pan-German ideals suggests at
least an original general apathy or ignorance and
need of a propaganda. How far has this been over-
come?

We never know until after the votes are counted

38 The Creed of Deutschtu7n

what the opinion of the people is. Now the point
I have in mind is how far does the great silent
thought of the people share these ideals which have
been so noisily taught by the classes? Suppose
that a questionnaire on the creed of Germandom
were circulated throughout the whole people of
Germany, how would the masses answer the ques-
tions ? Probably no one inside or outside Germany
really knows. But it is probable that as in all coun-
tries they would follow their leaders when it came
to action. We know that the Kaiser, the govern-
ment and the controlled press, the Junkers and the
commercial and industrial groups represented by
six of the most important industrial and agricul-
tural associations, the intellectuals, the military and
naval castes, the captains of industries, the conser-
vative and liberal political parties and many other
class groups are devotees to the creed of Das
Deutschtum either as a whole or in one or more
of its articles of faith. According to the concrete
issues to the front at any time one ideal naturally
dominates the thought of the day to the exclusion
of others. Just at present the war has necessarily
forced into the focus of interest the Pan-Germanic
idea of extension of territory by annexation of the
conquered countries. * Opinion on this issue is

* For an important account and discussion of German opinion on
tliis point see "German Land Hunger" by Professor Munroe Smith
in the Political Science Quarterly for September 1917. This article
is a review of "Das annexionistische Deutschland" (A collection of
documents published or circulated in Germany since Aug. 4, 1914) by
S. Grumbach, Payot & Co., Lausanne, 1917.

Tlie Creed of Deutschtum 39

necessarily more or less governed or modiified from
time to time by the requirements of practical poli-
tics and the changing war situations. It would ap-
pear, however, from the evidence in hand, that the
dominant opinion of the classes looks upon the pres-
ent hour as the golden opportunity to grasp the
fruits of military victory and thus at last bring to
fruition this particular long-cherished aspiration of
Das Deutschtum by annexing Belgium, northern
France, the Baltic provinces, Poland and large
slices of Russia. On the other hand, the Social
Democrats have consistently, since 1914, repudi-
ated "annexations," but as Munroe Smith! shows
us, "the majority group did not reject territorial
guarantees and securities," evidently infected by
the patriotic hysteria of the war fever.

The Social-Democrats

To Das Deutschtum, as a whole the members of
this large political group have been classed as "dis-
senters," if not heretics. Indeed it is difficult to
see how this democratic party — for such it really is
— can have reconciled some of these articles of faith
with their own party platforms. Indeed it has been
opposed to the doctrine of war, a large military
establishment and colonial expansion. In its last
jjarty platform of 1912 the social-democrats defi-
nitely recorded themselves on these points. Then,
too, the long and bitter struggle which they carried

t loc. cit.

40 The Creed of Deutschtum

on for years against the Government, since the
time of Bismarck, can only be interpreted as a re-
pudiation of that conception of the State which has
been so systematically taught by the schools and
universities. On the other hand, concrete issues in
which they have opposed the State have related
mostly to internal reforms, such as the ballot, and
have not touched the philosophy of Pan-German-
ism. But it is also true that the doctrine of a Super-
Germanic, blue-eyed, and blond-race has infected
the proletarian socialists as well as the other classes.
The members of this group are human and Ger-
mans as well as social-democrats, and the doctrines
of the superiority of the German race and its mis-
sion to regenerate the world are not incompatible
with their platform, and have touched the soft spots
of egotism and vanity in their personalities. It is
expecting too much of human nature that they
should not have accepted the teachings of renowned
students and historians and "race-biologists" who
have dinned into their ears their superiority over
all other races and the great benefit that will come
to humanity by the "peaceful penetration" of the
world by German kultur. And so they have shut
their eyes to the methods of intrigue, and deceit,
and espionage, by which peaceful penetration was
being brought about. The "mission" of Germany
activated largely by the super-race delusion re-
ceived from them little if any resistance. It is
only to the militaristic methods of regenerating the
world that they have taken exception.

The Creed of Deutschtum 41

That the majority of the social-democrats have
largely supported the government afte?' war was
declared proves nothing.

We are allowed to know so little of what has
been going on inside German}^ since war was begun
that no one outside probably can speak from direct
knowledge. But there are a few known facts and
certain general principles that can be offered with-
out danger of being wrong.

In the first place, we know that all Germans have
been made to believe — probably because they want-
ed to believe — that Germany was attacked, and the
social-democrats always said they would defend the
Fatherland if attacked. As Francke who knows
his Fatherland has testified :

They [the masses as well as the intellectuals] believe
that Germany has been the victim of a world-wide coali-
tion to rob her of the legitimate fruits of her unre-
mitting toil for national organization and to crush the
spirit of national solidarity that has led to German
ascendency in nearly every field of higher activity. What-
ever may be one's views as to the historical basis for
this belief, there can be no doubt that it is this belief
more than anything else which is giving Germany in this
war an extraordinary heroic strength. . . . Over and
over again she has been blocked in these enterprises by
the ill will of her more grasping rivals, and it is hard
to resist the conclusions that the present war was en-
tered upon by her enemies with the hope of shutting
her out once for all from the great stakes of colonial
expansion.;}:

Nothing was more naive than the expectation
that social-democrats would be disloyal to their

t loc. cit.

42 The Creed of Deutschtum

country after war was declared. They were opposed
to the declaration of war and disavowed all respon-
sibility therefor. But the Fatherland being en-
gaged in war it became another matter.

In the second place, it is a common, everyday
observation that nearly every person, once in a fight,
forgets the cause and the principles at issue and
goes in to win.

Thirdly, social-democrats are patriots and the
great mass of patriots in any country are, like all
bred-in-the~bone Americans, for their country,
"right or wrong."

Fourthly, it is a well-known psychological fact
that persons who have broken away, later in life,
from the early and deeply inculcated sentiments
and principles of youth and accepted new points
of view on intellectual grounds, afterwards in times
of stress, like war, or misfortune, or danger, tend
to revert to those earlier ingrained sentiments in
which feeling is strongly incorporated. And they
also revert to the influence of the primitive instincts
which had been brought under control by the social
education. Striking examples of this principle we
have seen amongst the hyphenated (German)
Americans in this country.

We can safely say, then, in spite of their attitude
during the war, that most of the ideals of Das
Deutschtum were not shared on the whole by the
social-democrats before the war. And there is good
reason to believe that when the time comes for
peace, this large group of Germans will be found

Tlie Creed of Deutschtum 43

to support the demand of the rest of the world for
the suppression of Prussian miHtarisni and Prus-
sian autocracy. With the subsidence of the excite-
ment of war the principles of democracy will once
again become dominant in their thoughts.

As to the mass of the rest of the German "peo-
ple,"* we have to guide us the information brought
out of Germany by foreign diplomats and corre-
spondents of the press and the testimony of neu-
trals who have resided or travelled in Germany
after the outbreak of war, and we have the utter-
ances of so-called representative men and of the
press, the parliamentary debates of party repre-
sentatives and a vast mass of writings. Through
all this there runs a concordance of testimony show-
ing few discordant notes amongst the Germans
themselves. Undoubtedly these notes would be
more strident and more numerous if it were not
for the official censorship. But, also undoubtedly,
the intolerant social censorship of the majority pub-
lic opinion is quite as powerful in suppressing in-
dividual revolt as the official censorship. That is
true in all communities. And in Germany, as else-
where, there must be a large number of the ignorant
and the uneducated, the "boobs," who are too unin-
telligent to have any opinions at all on national
ideals and therefore on the philosophy and the ideals
of Das Deutschtum. These can be left out of ac-

* I put aside the Pan-Germanists, Junkers and other groups whose
sentiments are well known to be those of Das Deutschtum.

44 The Creed of Deutschtum

count. It is only the dominants that count. But
of the dominant intelligent classes, aside from the
military caste, whether men of business affairs en-
gaged in manufactures, and commerce, and finance,
and industry, or of the professions, or agriculture,
or other vocations, the evidence goes to show, as
many have pointed out, the vast majority have ac-
cepted and become inoculated with the teachings
of the universities and higher schools and of the
"intellectuals." They have become permeated with
the ideals of the Creed of Deutschtum until these
have become habits of thought and second nature.
Of course one ideal is more controlling in one
mind and one in another. We have only to look
about us in this country and note the sentiments of
Germans and so-called German- Americans, bom
and educated in Germany but now living in our
midst. Nearly all these, almost without exception,
even moderate men like Professor Francke who
wish to be loyal to American ideals were, before
we entered the war, dominated by German thought,
German ideals, and admiration for German kultur.
These men, under the reactionary impulses awak-
ened by the war, reverted, as was natural, to the in-
culcated teaching of their youth.

But the "state of mind" of Germans in the
United States is only in part to be ascribed to
reversion. In large part it was due to systematic
organized propaganda, begun and carried on for
years before the war. (Article VI of Creed.) It
was carried on by a German language press and

The Creed of Deutschtum 45

by German societies of different kinds, possibly by
some unconscious of its deeper purpose. This
purpose was to spread and inculcate the ideas of
Das Deutschtum in America as has been done in
South America and other countries. Indeed, ac-
counts have been written by German- Americans
recording the progress of the "German idea" in
the United States. t

This invasion has been a part of the "peaceful
penetration" which the German government and
nation have persistently carried on in nearly all
countries in quest of world dominion. The German
"idea" is so utterly hostile to American ideals that
its penetration into America can only be regarded
as a menace to our institutions. And the German
societies engaged, consciously or unconsciously, in
spreading Das Deutschtum in the United States
must be viewed as dangerous elements.

The upshot of these two forces — reversion and
propagandism — is that the state of mind of Ger-
mans in the United States fairly reflects that of
their countrymen in the Fatherland. If we want
to understand the dominant state of mind of Ger-
mans at home we have only to examine that of
those here in America.

The situation has been, then, fairly summed up
by Professor Francke when he said, in December,

t Notably Dos Deutschtum in den Vereinigten Staaten by Julius
Goebel, professor in the University of Chicago: and Das Deutschtum
der Vereinigten Staaten, by Professor Karl Knortz, Superintendent
of Schools at Evansville, Indiana (1898).

46 The Creed of Deutschtum

1915, although possibly without realizing how it
would sound to American ears :

With the exception of a few Socialist theorizers, not
a German has lifted his voice during the last twelve-
month but to declare that this war is the decisive test of
German nationality, of everything for which Germans
have lived and died in the past. American observers
have frequently expressed surprise that the intellectual
and spiritual leaders of the Germany of to-day, scien-
tists like Haeckel and Ostwald, philosophers like Eucken
and Wundt, philologists like Wilmanowitz and Diels, his-
torians like Eduard Meyer and Erich Marcks, economists
like Schmoller and Wagner, theologians like Harnack
and Troeltzsch, musicians like Humperdinck and Strauss,
poets like Dehmel and Gerhardt Hauptmann — are all of
one mind in this crisis, and that in their individual or
collective utterances they lay much more stress upon
conviction than argument. The reason, I think, is that
these men, and with them the masses of the German peo-
ple, feel that the German cause in this war needs no
logical defense, that it is impossible to think that the
most orderly, industrious, intelligent, law-abiding, sober
and spiritually minded of nations should suddenly become
insane, and from sheer madness of passion and lust of
conquest have plunged into a war of aggression against
the majority of the world's military powers, in other
words into what to all outward appearances would seem
certain self-destruction. J

It is safe, then, to say that the policies, methods
and utterances of the statesmen and public men
of Germany, however shocking they have been to
our ears, have in no way misrepresented the sen-

t loc. cit.

The Creed of Deutschtum 47

timents of the German people as a whole.

When the Kaiser in a speech in 1905 declared
"We are the salt of the earth," all the world outside
of Germany smiled and thought to itself, it is only
one of the Kaiser's exuberant boastings and vain-
glorious phrases. But he had not coined the phrase
although he made it famous. It was only a trite,
banal exclamation which had been repeated hun-
dreds of times by others and belonged to the thought
of Das Deutschtum. It was as commonplace to
German ears as it would be to Americans, if the
President had said, "the American flag is the most
glorious of flags"; or, "America is 'the home of the
brave and the land of the free.' "

And likewise, when the Kaiser said, in 1907, at
Miinster :

Let all the old and new subjects of this Empire, the
citizens, the peasants, the working men, unite in one and
the same sentiment of love and fidelity towards the Fath-
erland, and the German people will be the block of gran-
ite, upon which our Lord God will he able to raise and
perfect the chnlization of the world; it is then that the
saying of the poet will be made good: "The world some
day will owe its salvation to Germanism,"

When he said this he was only repeating the
idea of the collaboration of God and Germany
which he had learned in the universities and which
had permeated German thought as well as his own.

When the German Chancellor, von Bethmann-
Hollweg, in the stormy interview with the Eng-
lish Ambassador on August 4, 1914, characterized

48 The Creed of Deutschtum

the treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium
as only a "scrap of paper," he said nothing shock-
ing or even new to the German mind. He did not
even coin this phrase which dates back to Fred-
erick William IV ; he only made it historic. Like-
wise in 1901 an anonymous writer in an important
publication had used the same expression: "What
about treaties? In time of war the articles of all
treaties of neutrality are carried away by wind like
so many scraps of ijaper." * Although von Beth-
mann-Hollweg's exclamation was uttered in a mo-
ment of anger, which temporarily disrupted his dip-
lomatic self-control, it gave away not only the
real underlying belief of the man, but one of the
ideals of German statesmanship long and widely
inculcated as one of the ideals of Das Deutschtum.
The doctrine had been current for years and years
in Germany. And similarly with the claim of the
right to invade a neutral state under the "law of
necessity." The demands of statescraft required
that such principles as, "The German state does
not consider itself bound by treaties when it is for
her interest to break them," and, "Small states
from lack of power are not states at all and there-
fore have no rights and may be invaded," should
not be disclosed, but should be repressed in diplo-
matic intercourse. Under the force of the angry
emotion of the moment, the lid was lifted and the
represse'd ideal burst out to the surface. For the
instant, the mask was removed; the diplomatic ve-

* German Ideals in 1917 and in 1914 by Andr6 Chevrillon.

The Creed of Deutschtum 49

neer, that only imitated the morality of civilization,
cracked. This is the true significance of the disclo-
sure which has shocked the conscience of the world.
The doctrine has been preached and hammered into
the consciousness of the German people until it
has become one of the cardinal articles of the Creed
of Deutschtum.

When von Biilow, the former Chancellor, said:
"The King must be at the head of Prussia; Prussia
at the head of Germany ; and Germany at the head
of the universe"; and, "Germany above everything,
everything in the world," he was only giving ex-
pression to the current thought of the German peo-
ple, and not merely to that of the military and
Junker class, or of the autocracy of which he was
the official representative.

When General von Moltke wrote in 1880: "Per-
petual peace is a dream, and it is not even a beau-
tiful dream. War is part of the eternal order
instituted by God," he not only made it easy for
the conscience of any statesman who scrupled to
declare war, but showed that the army had become
infected by the sophisticated teachings of the uni-
versity professors and their ilk, as Bernhardi be-
came later. And he simply was repeating one of
the Articles of the Creed of Deutschtum.

When the German Secretary of State for For-
eign Affairs, von Jagow, a few months before the
war, said that "the small states will no longer be
able to enjoy the independence hitherto perrnitted
to them ; they are destined to disappear, or to grav-

50 The Creed of Deutschturrt

itate into the orbit of the great Powers," he simply
upheld the doctrine of Deutschtum that Belgium
and Holland and Serbia and other small states are
iiot states at all, in the true sense of the word, with
rights which great states are bound to respect.
Though the policy of the invasion of Belgium and
Serbia was that of the government, the force be-
hind it was the German people.

We have all laughed at the bombastic painting
which the Kaiser had made of himself as a Roman
Emperor mounted on a prancing charger and we
thought of him, perhaps, as a silly fooL But there
could be nothing ridiculous in it to a German who
has been taught to believe that there have been only
three great periods in history, Hellenism, Roman-
ism, and Germanism, and that Germanism is the
only and direct successor of Romanism,* and Wil-
liam II. the direct successor of the Roman Em-
perors. The symbolism of the painting represents
one of the theories of Deutschtum and not only the
megalomania of William II.

And so I might run on indefinitely with the ut-
terances and acts of German statesmen and public
men. All this explains the solidarity of the Ger-
man people behind the Kaiser in the war.

* German Theory and Practice of War: Lavisse & Andler, 1915.
This idea is summed up in the inscription, quoted by these authors,
displayed on a restored Roman camp "Trajano, imperatori
Romanorum, Wiihelmus II imperator Germanorum."

The Creed of Deutschtum 51

The failure of the statesmen of the Entente to
understand Deutschtum unquestionably caused
them to fail to realize the aims of Germany in be-
ginning and pursuing the war; and this failure led
to mistakes of strategy on their part.

If the British Foreign Minister, then Sir Ed-
ward Grey, had understood that the so-called "pun-
ishment" of Serbia, in July, 1914, for alleged po-
litical offenses was only an ostensible motive put
out to blind the world, and that the real aim was
the long-planned and cherished ideal of Pan-Ger-
manism to extend its empire through the Balkans,
he would have also realized that not soft, diplo-
matic appeals but only the mobilization of the Brit-
ish fleet, as in 1911, at the time of the Agadir inci-
dent, would make Berlin "stop, look and listen."
If he had appreciated that the Serbian incident was
only the long awaited opportunity and excuse which
Pan-Germanism sought, he would have seen that
only the vigorous diplomatic methods of Charles
Francis Adams in 1863 and Grover Cleveland in
1895 and Theodore Roosevelt in 1902 might have
checked Germany's aggression.

If, later in 1915, the Entente had fully under-
stood the mighty, pent-up urge of that ideal of Das
Deutschtum which for twenty j^ears has been ac-
quiring momentum within the consciousness of the
nation, they would have realized that the hour had

52 The Creed of Deutschtujn

struck when it would make an effort to burst its
bonds, drive by the Iron Gates on the Danube
through Serbia and on to Constantinople, and there
fulfil its ambition. It would have been clear to
them that this drive was bound to come as soon
as we Americans had cleaned the country from
typhus fever.* And they would have sent Gen-
eral Serrail's army to Belgrade in 1915 when the
heroic Serbian army stood faithfully, alone, "the
guardian of the Gate."! Instead they wasted at
Gallipoli a splendid army that might have barred
the passage of the Danube, saved Serbia, held
Greece passive, and isolated Bulgaria, preventing
her from joining the Central Powers. But they
did not understand Deutschtum. Too late they
sent General S err ail to Saloniki, and Germany has
gained this, her goal of empire, of which she has
dreamed for twenty years, since the Kaiser's visit
in 1898 to Palestine where he proclaimed himself
the "protector of all the Mussulmans."

And so with Roumania. An understanding of
Deutschtum would have induced the Entente, un-
less prepared to give adequate military support,
to discourage Roumania, long coveted by Pan-
Germanism, from entering the war, instead of en-
couraging her to do so, weak as she was. Oppor-

* This drive was predicted to me in England in the summer of
1915, by an Englishman who had just returned from Serbia. He
claimed that the importance of sending forces to Belgrade had been
urged by Serbia on the Entente.

t "She is the guardian of the Gate and faithfully has she stood
to her trust." (Lloyd George.)

The Creed of Deutschtum 53

tiinity knocked at the door of Berlin. Well might
Das Deutschtum answer, "The Lord has delivered
into our hands the lamb for which we have lusted.
Our chance has come at last." What else could
the Entente have expected but a mighty German
drive — for oil wells, wheat, and extension of em-
j)ire? For what else did Germany originate this
war? "The sole object of the war," the Kaiser
announced in a General Order to his troops in 1915,
"was to enforce the triumph of that Great Ger-
many which was to dominate all Europe." And so
the German Empire for the present extends from
the Baltic to the Dardanelles and on into Asia
Minor. And all because the Entente failed to
grasp the need to plug the hole through which the
central powers poured their armies into Serbia and
weakly let down the bars of the neutral gate that
kept them out of coveted Roumania.

M. Cheradame, through his brilliant writings,
based on studies of Germany, pursued through
twenty years and more, has opened the eyes of
America to the systematically laid plans of Ger-
many, consistently held to and developed for twen-
ty years, to weld together under German rule and
hegemony a "Mittel-Europa," and extend the Ger-
man Empire from the North Sea to Bagdad and
the Persian Gulf. The Pan-Germanic propaganda
should have rendered unnecessary such expositions.
But we went our way and would not listen to warn-
ings of students of Germany. M. Cheradame has
done us great service not only in setting in the

54 The Creed of Deutschtum

clear light of day these German designs and im-
perial policies, pursued unremittingly since 1898,
the time of the Kaiser's visit to Damascus and the
then Minister of Foreign Affairs, von Biilow, but
in getting our attention and making us listen. It
has now become perfectly clear, as light has been
thrown from many sources on German activities,
that the attack on Serbia in 1914 (originally
planned for 1913) was intended to be the prelim-
inary and necessary step to accomplish the final
conquest of "Mittel-Euroxia" and beyond — the
"Drang nach Osten." Serbia was the block wedged
in between Austria-Hungary, on the North, and
Bulgaria and Turkey on the South, and had to
be eliminated.

This ambition of a German Mittel-Europa and
beyond — Hamburg to Bagdad — is the concrete ap-
plication of the doctrine of Article VII of the
"Creed," the mission of Germany to extend her
territories at the expense of less meritorious peo-
ples. Further the Balkans and Asia Minor are
only the southeastern extension of Mittel-Europa.
The full plan included the countries to the north
— Holland and Belgium.

But let us not lose sight of the fact, in focussing
our attention on the territorial hegemony of Ger-
many, that the extension of territories in Europe
by force is only one particular expression of
"Deutschland ueber Alles." It is the result of only
one of the doctrines of the Creed. And the driving
force that provides the national will to accomplish

The Creed of Deutschtum 55

the purpose by military power is Das Deutschtum.
If all the states concerned chose voluntarily, by
their free will and accord (an inconceivable prop-
osition) to form a single confederation, the rest of
the world could not righteously interfere. For it
would be to control the right of free peoples to
work out their destinies in their own way. The great-
est danger to the freedom of the world — for which
democracy is contending — is that great national
Delusion which conceives the mission of the Ger-
man State and the German people to be to regener-
ate the rest of the world, conceived as inferior peo-
ples, by the domination of German ideas and Ger-
man kultur, and German power.

It is Das Deutschtum that has inspired Germany
and given force to such policies. Without its in-
sane delusions they could not live one minute. Das
Deutschtum has made possible the militaristic gov-
ernment, and given moral support to the military
oligarchy and the Junker caste. Prussian mili-
tarism is only a tool — the "hammer. "J Other tools
have been peaceful commercial penetration of the
nations and systematic propaganda, open and se-
cret. These, as we now know, have been most ef-
fective German measures.

It was in the event that other nations would re-

t "In the coming century Germany must be the hammer or the
anvil" — Speech of von Biilovv, December 11, 1897. This is a favorite
figure of speech with the Germans. Professor Mahling, Privy Coun-
cillor of the consistory, in an address asked, "Do we desire to be
the hammer which God wields?"

56 The Creed of Deutschtum

fuse to be peacefully regenerated and to accept
the Divine Mission of Das Deutschtum that it be-
came necessary to have ready as a threat the most
powerful armies and navies in the world; and then
when the crisis came to resort to the hammer —
military force and Prussian militarism.

It is easy, too, to see that under the claim to be
the chosen of God to do His divine Will, Fright-
fulness, invented and taught by their great military
authority Clausewitz and later systematized by the
German war-staff, is easily justified to themselves
by the people as it was in the middle ages when
employed in religious crusades against heretics.

VII

That the German people seriously believe,
or rather have made themselves believe, that
they believe in the Divine Mission of them-
selves, just as the Kaiser has made himself
believe in his divine right to rule, must not
be ignored if we are to understand the forces that
we are up against in this war and are to make sure
of a lasting peace. But that this call, whether di-
vine or from an exalted State, to regenerate the
world is the real motive which has impelled the
German nation to extend its dominion to World
Empire, no tyro in psychology will believe for one
moment.

It is too grotesque. It is accompanied by too

The Creed of Deutschtum 57

great ardor and emotion. And the purpose coin-
cides too closely with the material interest of Ger-
many. Suppose it was against Germany's inter-
est, does any one believe that Germany would listen
to the call of God? Some political writers have
swallowed this ostensible motive, hook, bait and line.
Granted it is the motive the Germans have given
to themselves. Psychology, as well as practical
politics, teaches us that we must look deeper below
the surface for the real motive.

The real motive is nothing but pure greed; the
desire for material and political power and expan-
sion, for self-aggrandizement at the expense of
others — world empire in a material sense.

"Was wir brauchen wir nehmen"t — what we
want we take — has been the inner concealed thought
of the Germans.

But this sordid motive of self-aggrandizement
must be made acceptable and be justified to them-
selves. So, by the well known process of sophis-
tical rationalizing, it is transformed and made pal-
atable to a chosen people as a Divine Mission. Psy-
chologically, that's easy enough.

Nevertheless, as a phenomenon of social psy-
chology, bordering on psychiatry, the fact of a
whole nation being inspired and impelled by a mys-
tic ideal is of great interest and well worthy of
study.

But more important to-day is the recognition of
the fact that Das Deutschtum is the force behind

t See pages 78, 79.

58 The Creed of Deutschtum

Prussian militarism, behind Prussian frightfulness,
behind German ideas of State, Power, Empire, be-
hind the lust for extension of territories and every
act of Germany responsible for this war and the
way it has been carried on.

How superficial, then, is the view that this war
is not directed against the German people but only
against the German ruling classes.

It may be expedient as a matter of political tac-
tics to separate the people from the Government
in the responsibility for this war, but the real re-
sponsibility lies with those who have cultivated the
ideals of which the Government is only the expo-
nent. And now, when the war is a fact, that the
great majority of the German people stand solidly
behind their Kaiser as their champion in the war,
no student of Germany has doubted. Nevertheless,
history has shown that the collectively held ideas
of a people are capable of undergoing revolution-
ary transfoiTnation. The government is fighting
for its own existence, for the perpetuation of its
own power, and nothing like self -abdication can be
expected of it. But it is within the bounds of
possibility that under the influence of a tactfully
conducted propaganda the masses of the people
may be made to see that, on the one hand, they were
misled into believing that Germany was attacked
from a desire to dismember the Empire, and, on
the other, that with the object lesson before them
of British, French, Italian and American efficiency,
their faith in the divine mission of a blond super-

The Creed of Deutschtum 59

race has been nothing but a social delusion. With
the scales fallen from their eyes they might, quite
possibly, as peoples have done before, make a
scapegoat of the Government and its professorial
and political "machine." It would be an evolution
and not a revolution.

Das Deutschtuin then is a state of mind of the
German people. Unless either the power of Ger^
many to wage war be totally destroyed, or unless
this state of mind is destroyed and the German
people are awakened out of the delusional state into
which they have argued themselves, unless they are
made to face the truth, to see the truth in all its
horrible nakedness, there can be no lasting peace.
The German menace will persist. This every one
in France sees and understands. There are no illu-
sions, no misunderstandings, no attempt to hide
from the facts, in spite of a passionate longing for
2)eace, to escape the misery of war, to save the rem-
nants of their devastated land, to save further sac-
rifice of the sons of France. The man in the street
knows the truth. The poilu in the trenches knows
the truth. The workman in the factory, the peas-
ant in the fields, the women of France — all know
the truth.

The same is true of the people of England.
They, one and all, understand, as the people of
America are only just dimly beginning to under-
stand, the German state of mind. What use, if a
lasting peace is to be achieved, only to liberate

60 The Creed of Deutschtum

Belgium and France and Serbia and all the other
countries now within the German war map; and
even Alsace and Lorraine? What use, if a lasting
peace is to be achieved, to destroy even the Prus-
sian autocracy, unless the power to wage war or
the delusional state of mind, the German national
consciousness. Das Deutschtum, be destroyed — be
cured and regenerated? What use to make peace
now if some day the war is to be fought all over
again?

Such, according to my experience, is the one per-
vading thought shared by substantially all the peo-
ple of France and England. All are united in
the belief that to make a peace that shall not be a
lasting peace is only to shirk the responsibility, to
transmit to the next generation the task only half
finished. It would mean that all the sacrifices they
have made would be in vain.

And so the people of France and the people of
Great Britain are ready to go on, and on, and on,
making untold sacrifices that their children and
their children's children may not have to endure,
as the present generation has had to endure, this
agony and bloody sweat.

And so out of this deep, silent conviction, and
this grim determination, there has arisen a spirit
of self-sacrifice. By this their fortitude is sus-
tained. This is one of the great lessons of this
war. One splendid manifestation of this spirit is
the way the women of France and Great Britain
have come forward and taken the places of the

The Creed of Deutschtum 61

men in the fields and in the workshops. Like the
men they have responded to the call of country.
One sees them by the thousands and tens of thou-
sands; sowing the fields and tilling the harvest; at
the lathe and forge and furnace; making and fill-
ing the shells, and doing nearly every sort of work
in every sphere where work is required of some-
body.

It is a wonderful lesson, that of self-sacrifice.
We, too, are learning it but we have much to
learn.

I know no more beautiful expression of this spirit
than that which I saw in France. It was in a large
military cemetery at Chalons-sur-Marne. This
cemetery was dedicated by their comrades to the
soldiers of the IV army fallen in that sector in the
great Champagne drive of July- August, 1915. As
we entered the enclosure, stretched before us were
endless rows of graves, row on row, each grave
reverently and beautifully planted with flowers and
surmounted by a black cross of generous propor-
tions marked with a white disc inscribed with the
name of a dead soldier of France. Private and of-
ficer lay side by side without distinction. The
aspect and atmosphere of the place were so impres-
sive of reverence and love that instinctively each of
us bared his head and spoke in subdued tones. Then
we read on a monument — a simple shaft erected to
the memory of the dead, these words:

62 The Creed of Deutschtum

"A nos Morts.

Le mort n'est rien. Vive la tombe

quand le pays en sort vivant.

En avant !" J

Das Deutschtum during long years of prepara-
tion planned for the dominion of the world by Ger-
many. It deliberately planned for a world war
if necessary to carry out its ambitions of lust. For
this purpose it fostered and encouraged an arro-
gant, monstrous, military caste and autocracy. It
created a colossal army ready to strike at a mo-
ment's notice to enforce its will. It had been build-
ing a navy for a score of years not for defense
but to secure conquests in every part of the globe
and wrest the colonies of other nations from their
allegiance. It brought on this war against an un-
suspecting world. It has caused untold misery,
desolation, the destruction of venerated monuments
of art and religion, the massacres of hundreds of
thousands of innocent people and atrocities hith-
erto inconceivable; it has caused the killing and
maiming of millions of men; the wasting of the
accumulated wealth of the world and of the pro-
ductive activities of generations to come. It has
forced the people of the United States, as well as

t To our Dead.

Death is nothing. Hurrah for the

tomb when from it springs forth a living nation.

Forward !

On another face of the monument is inscribed:

"Gloire a notre France 6ternelle
Glolre a ceux qui sent morts pour elle."

The Creed of Deutschtum 63

others, to give over the peaceful pursuits of happi-
ness and social welfare and sacrifice the lives and
well-being of its youth in a dreadful war. It has
forced them to pile up billions of debt and mort-
gage their future earnings that would have been
used to make their land better to live in and their
homes prosperous and happy.

All this misery and much more has it done. And
for this the Creed of Das Deutschtum must be de-
stroyed, renounced forever for the salvation and
freedom of mankind.

And so supported by the spirit of self-sacrifice,
we Americans, too, must go on and on until the
conflict between the ideals of Germany and the
ideals of the West is settled for all time.

"The 'Battle Hymn of the Republic' must be still
our hymn:

"In the beauties of the lilies Clirist was born across the

sea.
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me :
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on."

We must go on using all our man power, and
all our resources, the economic blockade and the so-
cial boycott, until the Germans have awakened out
of the temporary obsessions by which they have
been afflicted for years and years. We must go
on, ready, like the people of the British Empire
and the people of France, for every sacrifice, until
the Germans are prepared to face themselves and
the ugliness of the doctrines they call ideals. We

64 The Creed of Deutschtu7n

must go on until the people of Germany themselves,
no longer blinded, realize that Das Deutschtum is
only the delusion of a social insanity and with clear
vision take the reins of government into their own
hands. We must go on until they are prepared,
to make atonement and reparation for the past
and by accepting the ideals of western democracies
give guarantees of a lasting peace. Victory will
come, but it will be the victory of Democracy which,
though now using the sword, only seeks the free-
dom of the world.

PRUSSIAN MILITARISM AND
A LASTING PEACE

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE WORCESTER
churchmen's club, WORCESTER, FEBRUARY 7, 1917.

PRUSSIAN MILITARISINI AND
A LASTING PEACE

WHEN you did me the honor of mak-
ing me your guest this evening you
invited me to si^eak on the subject
of the war which is now in every
one's mind and heart.

Indeed, the time has come when the American
people are called upon to think long and seriously
and deeply upon the principles involved in this
war. For these principles vitally concern Amer-
ican interests, and we are now likely at any mo-
ment to be called upon to take part in this war.
If we are drawn in no one can foresee what lies
before us, how far we shall go, where or what the
end shall be.

Nor can we foresee what will be the final effect
upon our own institutions, what changes in our own
policies and system will result.

During the course of several weeks we were kept
in a tense condition of suspense while possible terms
of peace were discussed by the belligerents and our
Government and it was mooted whether peace
could be secured without victory or only with vic-
tory. And now the dramatic events of the past
week have forced us to take a stand in defense of
American rights. The President had to face

68 The Creed of Deutschtum

squarely a position in which there was no alter-
native. Only one course was open to him — to keep
his plighted word. That course he took.f And I
believe every true American, no matter how severe
a critic of the Administration he has been hitherto,
will stand up and support him in the step he has
taken and in any measures he may take in defense
of American honor and American rights

But this action of the President, these latest dra-
matic events, to which I have referred, have tended
to push into the background of the mind the gen-
eral principles underlying the war, and to bring
out into the focus of attention of the American
mind only a particular concrete application of these
principles — viz: the denial of freedom of the seas
by ruthless submarine warfare.

It has been difficult to make the people of cer-
tain sections of this country, particularly the West,
understand and still more to interest them in the
principles involved in this war. But now that con-
crete American rights are avowedly to be attacked^
they have become aroused and have rallied with
gratifying unanimity in defiance of the "mad-man
of Europe."

Yet the denial to Americans by Germany of free-
dom of the seas is not solely a war measure dic-
tated by the military exigencies of the moment but
a concrete application, as I shall contend, of prin-

t Breaking oflf diplomatic relations with Germany.
t German declaration of ruthless submarine warfare beginning Feb-
ruary 1, 1917.

Prussian Militarism and a Lasting Peace 69

ciples of Government which are utterly hostile to
American principles — to the American theory of
Government. These principles are those of Prus-
sian Militarism and to these I would like to speak.

Prussian Militarism as an issue is fundamental
to terms of peace; it is fundamental to the objects
of the Allies; it vitally affects American interests;
it vitally concerns a lasting peace.

I want to treat the subject from an American

point of view, for it concerns American ideals,

American principles and American interests. As

Daniel Webster said in 1823 when protesting in the

cause of Greece against Turkish frightfulness and

the Allied Powers of Europe of his time :

Let this be then, and as far as I am concerned I hope
it will be, purely an American discussion ; but let it
embrace, nevertheless, everything that fairly concerns
America. Let it comprehend not merely her present ad-
vantage but her permanent interest, her elevated char-
acter as one of the free States of the world, and her
duty toward those great principals which have hither-
to maintained the relative independence of nations, and
which have, more especially, made her what she is.

And so from this same standpoint I want to
ask if it is true, as the President once said, "Amer-
ica is not concerned with the causes and objects of
this war."

The Demand for the Suppressio7i of Prussian
Militarism

Let me prelude what I have to say by calling
your attention to the fact that the Entente Powers,

70 The Creed of Deutschtum

in both their notes in answer to the Central Powers
and to Mr. Wilson, insisted upon the destruction
of Prussian militarism as fundamental to all the
other objects they have in mind and to terms of
peace.

This object has been well known to the world for
a long time. From almost the beginning of the
war it has been accentuated again and again by
England, France, Russia and Italy, until it rings
out as the slogan of the war. This condition of
peace, they have also said, alone can furnish an
effectual guarantee for a lasting peace which they
must have. And therefore, unless this end be ac-
complished and Prussian militarism be destroyed,
there is no use in making peace now or at any other
time for the war would have to be fought sooner
or later all over again. The demand for a lasting
peace and the demand for the destruction of Prus-
sian militarism go hand in hand. We cannot have
the one without the other.

This view of the Allies has been repeatedly ex-
pressed through their responsible chiefs. It is not
mere rhetoric; it is a state of mind that must be
taken into consideration in estimating the possibil-
ity of peace without victory — peace by negotiation.

"We shall never sheathe the sword," said Mr.
Asquith, in his historic Guildhall speech, "which
we have not lightly drawn, until the military dom-
ination of Prussia be wholly and finally destroyed."

Mr. Bonar Law, Government leader in the
House of Commons, defined the peace terms of the

Prussian Militarism and a Lasting Peace 71

Allies as "restitution, reparation and guaranties
against repetition," and Mr. Lloyd George ampli-
fied this epigrammatic definition as, "complete res-
titution, full reparation and effectual guaranties."
What constitutes effectual guaranties he set forth
when he said:

The Allies entered into this war to defend Europe
against the aggression of Piiissian military domina-
tion, and they must insist that the end is a most complete
and effective guarantee against the possibility of that
caste ever again disturbing the peace of Europe.

It is an "honorable and lasting peace" that is
wanted.

Likewise the Russian Duma lead off in answer
to the German overtures for peace with the dec-
laration :

It [the Duma] considers that a lasting peace will be
possible only after a decisive victory over the military
power of the enemy and after definite renunciation by
Germany of the aspirations which render her responsible
for the world war and for the horrors by which it has
been accompanied.

The official reply of the ten Entente Allies to
the proposal of the Central Powers for a peace con-
ference runs:

Once again the Allies declare that no peace is possible
... so long as they have not brought about a settle-
ment calculated to end, once and for all, forces which
have constituted a perpetual menace to the nations, and
to afford the only effective guarantee for the future se-
curity of the world.

Likewise Bonar Law explained the attitude of

72 The Creed of Deutschtmn

the British Government. He said in the House of
Commons :

What are we fighting for? Not territory, not greater
strength as a nation. We are fighting for two things —
for peace now and for security for peace in time to come.
Let the House remember what happened in this war^ — out-
rages in Belgium, outrages by sea and land, massacres in
Armenia which Germany could have stopped by a word
-T-then realize this: The war will have been fought in
vain — utterly in vain, unless we can make sure that it
shall never again be in the power of any State to do
what Germany has done.

The Central Powers, it will be remembered,
wanted to fix up a peace first through a Confer-
ence and later, after present peace had been agreed
upon, to enter into arrangements to preserve fu-
ture peace.

The great work of preventing future wars, they said,
can be begun only after the end of the present struggle
of the nations. (Reply to President Wilson's peace note
to all the belligerent and neutral Powers, Dec. 18, 1916.)

And to this Lloyd Gorge replied:

What guarantee is there that these terrors will not
be repeated in the future? That, if we enter into a
treaty of peace, we shall put an end to Prussian mili-
tarism?

In the same strain the Russian Duma announced
that it

considers that a premature peace would not only be a
brief period of calm, but would also involve the danger
of another bloody war and a renewal of the deplorable
sacrifices by the people.

The elimination of Prussian militarism, then,

Prussian Militarism and a Lasting Peace 73

has taken on the character of an ultimatum and a
paramount issue.

Thus, aside from all other considerations and
terms and issues, there arose a deadlock. The En-
tente held that the destruction of Prussian mili-
tarism was the only guarantee of lasting peace and
that this must be assured now as one of the terms
of present peace. The Central Powers took the
position that international arrangements for future
peace should be enterd into only after present peace
is agreed upon by negotiation; and the arrange-
ments which have been informally suggested by
them studiously avoid including the ending of Prus-
sian militarism, or any hint of an admission that
there is such a thing, much less that it would be sur-
rendered as a guarantee of future peace.

In this situation neutrals are bound to ask them-
selves whether Prussian militarism is such a men-"
acing thing to the future peace of the world that
the demand for its abolition in the terms for pres-
ent peace cannot be compromised; or whether it is
a matter of such indifference that it can be left
to future international arrangements. In the lat-
ter case they must ask themselves if it is likely that
Germany, after this war is ended by negotiation
and danger of defeat averted, would accept this
demand of the Allies as one of the later arrange-
ments to guarantee future peace. In other words,
does it matter much one way or the other so long
as the present conflict is settled? Or is the present
war an outburst of a long slumbering irreconcilable

74 The Creed of Deutschtum

and irrepressible conflict of principles, of ideals,
that cannot be permanently settled save by military
conquest — by peace with victory on one side or
the other.

Remember that Germany proposes that the Allies
postpone their paramount object until after the war
and trust to Germany's satisfying their claim later.

What Is Prussian Militarism?

What manner of thing, then, is "Prussian Mil-
itarism" that the continuation of this terrible war
can be justified until it is destroyed? Everything
hangs on the meaning of this abstract term.

Most people confuse militarism with large armies
and navies and even with "preparedness" or with
frightful methods of warfare. But a little consid-
eration will show that in principle it has nothing to
do with the size of a nation's army or navy and
much less with preparedness. A nation might main-
tain an enormous army and yet this would not be
militarism. And a nation might have a small army
and yet be a militaristic nation.

What, then, is Prussian militarism?

It is only necessary to turn to German publicists,
military writers, the speeches of the Kaiser and the
German press, to learn the German theory of gov-
ernment and the part the army plays in it, and then
by correlating these with the avowed policies and
actual practice during many years of Prussia and
the Imperial Government, both in internal and for^

Prussian Militarism and a Lasting Peace 75

eign affairs, to extract the meaning of the Prussian
system. From all these sources the world has been
able to obtain an understanding of it which it is safe
to say the Entente Powers have in mind when they
say it must be "wholly and finally destroyed."

Now, according to this conception, the funda-
mental principle of Prussian militarism is that the
stability, power and will of the nation rest not on
public opinion and the will of the people but on
armed force ; and therefore that it is to such armed
force that the Imperial Government looks not only
to maintain itself within the empire but — more im-
portant to other nations — to enforce its will and its
policies upon other nations without the empire.

More concretely, Prussian militarism in its ex-
ternal relations may be defined as the idea of ex-
tending the nation's trade and system of govern-
ment and policies by force. And in its official mili-
tary code governkig methods of warfare the laws
of humanity have no place under the exigency of
"necessity."

Militarism thus becomes something much more
than a system of defense against encroachments
from within and without — it is a mode of, and or-
ganization for attack in the enforcement of pro-
gressive policies, of national "evolution" (to use
von Bethmann Hollweg's phrase), and of the will
of the State, whatever direction these may take.
It has even been the boast, not only of the German
emperor but of a host of German publicists, that
by the potential power of its army (not, be it noted,

76 The Creed of Deutschtum

by respect for the rights of other nations), Ger-
many has maintained peace itself between the great
Powers of Europe during the past twenty-five
years.

Prussian mihtarism depends, of course, for its
efficiency, upon the theory, which Germany has ap-
phed in practice, that, if all the available forces of
a nation — economic, industrial, man-power, etc. —
are organized into a military system and that sys-
tem is developed to its very highest efficiency in
every one of its multiplicity of parts; and if it be
placed under the autocratic control of a govern-
ment not responsible to the people, or public opin-
ion, or parliament, it will be so powerful as to be
irresistible against any combination of powers likely
within human foresight to be brought against it:
and that therefore no State or likely combination of
States will dare to attack it, on the one hand, and,
on the other, it can enforce its will on the world.
This theory, it may be said in passing, has been
shown to be fallacious by the present war.

But this is not the whole, nor perhaps the worst
part of the Prussian system. The worst has been
the collective state of mind and certain specific
ideals instilled in the greater part of the German
people as a national consciousness. These include
the worship of military prowess and power, and
self -subjection to an exalted military caste; and
they include national desires and a national will —
a will to bring national desires to fulfilment by
force; to take what the State wants by force; to ex-

Prussian Militarism, and a Lasting Peace 77

tend its policies, whether of trade or empire, by
force; to gain "a place in the sun" by force; to
brook no opposition under threat of the sword; to
disregard international law and treaties and violate
neutral and weaker nations. Therefore arbitra-
tion, conciliation, respect for treaties and the nat-
ural inherent rights of other peoples are not rec-
ognized by militarism, as they were not recognized
when Germany in answer to Sir Edward Grey re-
fused to entertain them to avert this war.

It is obvious, then, Prussian militarism has noth-
ing to do with the size of armies excepting so far
as a relatively superior army may be a necessary
piece of machinery for enforcing its arbitrary will.

The United States might maintain a very small
army and yet adopt militarism as a policy in deal-
ing with weaker nations, like Mexico and some
South American republics. Or it might maintain
a huge army of say 4,000,000 men and yet not es-
pouse militarism. Japan might adopt a policy of
militarism against China but not against great
Powers.

And the same is true of a great navy. England
with her mighty navy holds the supremacy of the
sea, but militarism under the name of "navalism"
plays no part in her democratic theory of govern-
ment based on public opinion. To speak seriously
of British navalism as synonymous with militarism
is to fall into the confusion of mistaking the size of
armaments with the military theory of government.

78 The Creed of Deutschtum

Prussian Militarisin in Practice

Now it may be fairly asked, has in practice Prus-
sian militarism really sought to enforce its theo-
retic ideals on the world in such a wsiy that the
Allies are reasonably justified in demanding — sine
qua non — that it be destroyed as security for future
lasting peace? Or is it only an unsubstantial fear,
or political accusation, and this war only an excep-
tional application? Is it true that "Prussia," as
Lloyd George has charged,

since she got into the hands of that caste [the military
caste] has been a bad neighbor- — arrogant, threatening,
bullying, shifting boundaries at her will, taking one fair
field after another from weaker neighbors and adding
them to her own dominions, ostentatiously piling up
weapons of offense, ready on a moment's notice to be
used.

Or is what Bethmann-Holweg said true?

As against this aggressive character of the Entente,
he asserted, the Triple Alliance had always found itself
in a defensive position. No honorable critic can deny
that. Not in the shadow of Prussian militarism did the
world live before the war, but in the shadow of the
policy of isolation which was to keep Germany down.

Let us see what the actual practices of Germany
have been within the memory of the present gener-
ation.

In 1864 Prussia wanted the Duchies of Schles-
wig-Holstein and Lauenburg and so, with true Bis-
marckian duplicity, she picked a quarrel with Den-
mark, sent an ultimatum which, because Parlia-

Prussian Militarism and a Lasting Peace 79

ment was not in session, she knew it was physically
impossible under the constitution to satisfy within
the 48 hours allowed, and, with Austria as a tool,
took these provinces by force of arms. And Bis-
marck, as one historian remarks, regarded it "as
the diplomatic masterpiece of his career." "Was
wir brauchen, wir nehmen" — "what we want we
take" — as a Prussian diplomat once indiscreetly
boasted. The spoils for the time being were di-
vided with her co-conspirator, Austria, giving to
that Empire Holstein as her share. But Prussia
wanted more. She wanted all the spoils, and
wanted also for herself the headship of the Ger-
man Confederation and therefore to get rid of her
rival Austria.

So, in 1866, Prussia deliberately brought about
a war with Austria, and by force of arms the Prus-
sian octopus grabbed Holstein as well as Schleswig
and Lauenburg, annexed Hanover and several
Duchies, excluded Austria from Germany and
made herself the head of the new North German
Confederation with its King as the President and
Commander-in-Chief of all the armies, as he is now
the Emperor and supreme war-lord of the Imperial
Federation. "Was wir brauchen, wir nehmen."

But Prussia wanted still more. She wanted to
strengthen her power by bringing into the Confed-
eration which she ruled the South German States.
This could only be done by a war which would en-
tangle these states with which an offensive and de-
fensive military alliance had been made.

80 The Creed of Deutschtum

So in 1870, by falsifying a telegram, a quarrel
was deliberately forced upon France and by force
of arms Alsace and Lorraine were taken, and the
South German States fell into the Prussian net —
the Confederation, which now became the German
Imperial Federation with the Prussian King as
Emperor instead of President. "Was wir brau-
chen, wir nehmen."

In 1879 Germany wanted to mobilize the mili-
taristic forces of the central empires into one great
machine by forming an offensive as well as a defen-
sive alliance with Austria — thus holding the threat
of the Prussianized German machine over the rest
of Continental Europe to enforce the Prussian
Will. It is safe to say that without this alliance
the present war would have been impossible. As
a reaction to it — a counter-force — this alliance di-
rectly created the Dual Entente of France and
Russia.

In 1883 the dual alliance of Germany. and Aus-
tria became the triple Alliance, Italy joining for
defensive purposes only, and England, France and
Kussia were later compelled to answer it by the
Triple Entente.

In 1897 Germany wanted a colony in China; so
she simply took Kiao-chau by threat of war, claim-
ing it as an indemnity for — what?, just the murder
of two missionaries. That was the Prussian Will.

In 1898 the Kaiser wanted the Philippines, as
is generally believed. At any rate he sent the
German Admiral Diedrich to Manila Bay to inter-

Prussian Militarism and a Lasting Peace 81

fere with Dewey in the blockade and attempted to
form a European coalition against the United
States to intervene in our war with Spain. In con-
sequence of Diedrich's interference we were brought
to the brink of war with Germany. War was pre-
vented not by notes but by Dewey's threat to fire
upon the German fleet and by Captain Chichester
of the English navy ranging his vessel alongside of
Dewey. The European coalition against the
United States was blocked by England which re-
fused to join.

Germany's ambition was revealed by the Kaiser's
remark: "If I had had a larger fleet I would have
taken Uncle Sam by the scrufF of the neck." *

In 1902 he thought he had another chance to take
"Uncle Sam by the scruff of the neck" and test
the Monroe Doctrine. But this time Roosevelt
thwarted the Prussian Will. To collect some
money claims against Venezuela, Germany, having
sent war vessels to that country, threatened to bom-
bard Venezuelan ports and occupy the territory in
defiance of our Monroe Doctrine. President
Roosevelt sent for the German Ambassador at
Washington and told him that unless Germany
withdrew her fleet in ten days he would send Dewey
with the American fleet to protect Venezuela
against German encroachments. At the end of a
week Germany had made no reply. President
Roosevelt then said in substance to the Ambassa-
dor: "I said ten days: I now make it nine." In

* Cf. The Psychology of the Kaiser, p. 153.

82 The Creed of Deutschtum

thirty-six hours the Kaiser withdrew his fleet, t The
German Will to Conquer came in contact with the
American will to Defend and the German Will
succumbed. And it is well for all Americans to re-
member that there was no war.

In 1905 Germany entered into a diplomatic con-
troversy with France demanding an interest in Mo-
rocco, which really did not concern her excepting
on the doctrine "Was wir brauchen, wir nehmen."
A conference known as the Algeciras conference
was held. Germany's argument was, yield what
we want or — war ! That meant a general European
war, just such a war as we have to-day. France
yielded to save the world from a catastrophy like
the present one but was left humiliated with the
resignation of her Minister for Foreign Affairs,
Delcasse, demanded by Germany.

In 1907 at the Hague conference the United
States, England and France pledged themselves
in discussion to the principle of disarmament, but
Germany let it be known that she would leave the
conference if the question of disarmament was
pressed. And the German military machine re-
mained intact to threaten the world.

The next year, in 1908, Germany, disregarding
the treaty of Berlin of 1878 and the treaty of Lon-
don of 1871, boldly threatened war if Russia did
not back down and assent to the annexation of Bos-
nia and Hertzogovina by Austria. Russia, to avoid

■f Life of John Hay (Vol. II, appendix, 2nd Edition), by W. R.
Thayer.

Prussian Militarism and a Lasting Peace 83

a European conflagration, as France had done in
1905, backed down but announced, "never again!"

Three years later, in 1911, the Morocco question
was raised again with France, and Germany to en-
force her wants by threat of war — which again
meant a general European war, — sent the warship
Panther to Agadir. But this time England came
to the support of France and mobilized her fleet.
The GeiTnan warship Pantlier was withdrawn,
but Germany never recovered from the humiliation
to her pride of having to put her mailed fist in her
pocket and sheathe her shining sword in its scab-
bard.

In 1913 Germany made a secret proposal to the
Prime Minister of Italy, Giolitti, to join her with
Austria to make the same attack as she did in 1914
and partition Serbia between the three countries.
Italy, to her credit, refused.

In 1914 Germany secretly again entered into a
conspiracy with Austria to attack little Serbia, re-
duce her to a condition of vassalage, and extend the
German hegemony of "JNIittel-Europa" through
the Balkans to Constantinople. Militarism refused
arbitration, it refused conciliation, it refused a con-
ference and it refused peace. Her will alone must
be accepted. The European war resulted. The
violation of Belgium I need not refer to.

These are some of the more blatant examples of
Prussian methods of domination and extending her
empire and leadership by military force. For this

84 The Creed of Deutschtum

purpose, as every one knows, the most powerful mil-
itary organization the world has ever seen, perfect
in every detail, was built up.

But an army was not enough to enforce the ideals
of militarism.

Not satisfied with her Continental aspirations, an
ambition for colonial possessions and to become a
World Power was fomented by the Pan-Germans
with the Kaiser as their agent and became one of
the ideals of the German national consciousness.
But it was too late to acquire colonies peacefully
as the lands of the world, justly or unjustly, had
already been absorbed. It was necessary therefore
to take them by force from Great Britain, or
France, or other nations. So in 1897 a naval pro-
gram was entered upon, the ulterior design being
to wrest a "place in the sun" from mbre fortunate
and forehanded nations, particularly Great Britain.
And since that date Germany has endeavored to
outbuild Great Britain, hoping some day — await-
ing "The Day" when she would take what she
wanted from the British Empire. "The ocean
teaches us," said the Kaiser, "that on its waves and
on its most distant shores no great decision can
any longer take place without Germany and with-
out the German Emperor."

The unremitting pursuance of such policies by
Bismarck and his successors has been made easy by,
first, the autocratic constitution and character of
the Prussian and the Imperial systems of govern-
ment bordering on absolutism; and second, by the

Prussian Militarism and a Lasting Peace 85

creation of a national consciousness, a political re-
ligion, brought into being through the systematic
organized education of the dominant castes and
classes of Germany. Under the first the Imperial
system is substantially a continuation of the Prus-
sian system before the Federalization of the Ger-
man States in 1871 ; the Imperial Federation is
dominated by Prussia; the Government is an au-
tocracy with the power in the hands of the Kaiser;
the Chancellor, appointed by the Kaiser, is respon-
sible to him alone and not to the Reichstag, or even
to the Bundesrath ; the Kaiser may be, and, practi-
cally, William II. is, his own Chancellor and deter-
mines the policies of the Empire; the German
Reichstag, aside from voting supplies, is little more
than a debating body ; the army, not public opinion,
is, to use the words of the Kaiser, "the pillar of the
Empire" ; the government in practice is the Kaiser
and those responsible to him, not the Parliament;
the representatives of the people have little or noth-
ing to say in formulating the policies of the Em-
pire and, if they had, it would not make much prac-
tical difference because, owing to the inequitable
distribution of seats in Parliament without relation
to the present distribution of the population, the
voters are deprived of just proportionate represen-
tation.

By this system, obviously, power is almost wholly
in the hands of the administration, while the leg-
islative bodies are of little account beyond what
comes from the power of criticism and agitation.

86 The Creed of Deutschtum

Democracy has no place in the Geraian system.

By the second ch'cumstance I have just referred
to — the systematic education of the people — that
collective state of mind I mentioned some time back,
has been created in the dominant classes. This has
become the imponderable force behind militarism.
Indeed it may be said that Prussian militarism is
only the expression of this imponderable, the ma-
chinery it employs to fulfil its will. This impon-
derable has become, through a widespread propa-
ganda, fostered by the Government, a system of
ideals of the classes known as Das Deutschtum and
embodied in the policies f oiTnulated by the doctrines
of Pan-Germanism. It is customary to lay all the
blame for Prussian militarism upon the Kaiser, the
ruling classes and the so-called military autocracy.
But it is difficult to say how far these castes have
independently determined Gej^"man policies and how
far they themselves are only puppets and dupes of
their own propagandism. That the Kaiser is re-
sponsible for the creation of a military caste by
which he has surrounded himself, there would seem
to be no manner of doubt. And it now seems
equally clear that this creation of his hands — often
likened to the Frankenstein of story — in the time
of the world-crisis rose up and overpowered him.
But beyond and, I think we can with accuracy say,
above the military caste is that great imponderable
urge of the dominating consciousness of the Ger-
manic people — Das Deutschtum: A Will to dom-
inate all other peoples, to extend the German idea

Prussian Militarism and a Lasting Peace 87

— Weltmacht, Weltmarkt, Weltkultiir — through-
out the world. A state of mind, originating with
the philosophers and then taught by the professors
and intellectuals, under the tutelage or direction
of the State, the Kaiser himself, his ministers and
the members of the bureaucracy became first its
pupils and its victims and then, inspired by its ob-
sessing delusions, its exponents and administrators.
The military caste, created for the purpose, became
the willing instrument of execution. But before
the world upon the German State alone, in com-
plete possession of all the functions of govern-
ment, of administration, of direction of policies and
power to execute, rests the full responsibility for
all its actions. Yet in this analysis we see what
have been in the words of the Allies "the forces
which have constituted a perpetual menace to the
nations."

I have rehearsed all these well-known German
activities since 1864, the fundamental principles and
forces of the German system of government and its
methods of carrying into effect its policies, because
there is always danger when using an abstract term
of getting away from the underlying things for
which it stands, and, in this case, the ugly things
for which Prussian militarism stands. Prussian
militarism stands for a theory of government, an
attitude of mind, political ideals, and very definite,
concrete political and military forces and methods
of using them.

88 The Creed of Deutschtum

The world has been shocked by the sinking of the
Lusitania, of the Sussex and a large number of
other merchant ships without warning; by the bom-
bardment from the air and sea of open towns; by
the violation of Belgium and Serbia; by the mas-
sacre of their inhabitants and of the Armenians;
by atrocities unspeakable and innumerable; by the
wanton destruction of monuments of art, religion
and civilization; by the pillage of the inhabitants
and forced levying of fines on communities ; by the
deportation of the civil population for purposes of
forced labor; by the judicial murder of Miss Cavell
and Captain Fryatt; by the general methods of
f rightfulness ; by the adoption of the principle of
"military necessity," and many other acts repug-
nant to and destructive of accepted principles of
civilization. But these, however wrong and shock-
ing to our sensibilities, are only particular applica-
tions of the Prussian system of government and its
principles of militarism. So long as that system,
in which the rights of small states, international
law and the laws of humanity have no place, is tol-
erated by the world there is no logical reason to
revolt against its application.

So long as the world recognizes Germany as one
of the family of civilized nations, holds diplomatic
and social intercourse with her, trades with her,
lends to her, makes treaties with her, admits her to
fellowship in the humane society of mankind know-
ing her to be what she is, the world cannot in reason
object to her barbarism. If we accept the system

Prussian Militarism and a Lasting Peace 89

why object to its application?

In view, then, of all these considerations, the
meaning of the Allies to every one, who does not
shut his eyes to facts, is perfectly clear when they
say, in their answer to the Central Powers, "No
peace is possible ... so long as they [the Allies]
have not brought about a settlement calculated to
end once and for all forces which have constituted a
perpetual menace to the nations." And must not
every "honorable critic," to whom Bethmann-Holl-
weg has appealed, say that Lloyd George told the
truth when he answered, "Prussia since she got into
the hands of that caste [the military caste] has been
a bad neighbor — arrogant, threatening, bullying,
shifting boundaries at her will, taking one fair field
after another from weaker neighbors and adding
them to her own dominions, ostentatiously piling
up weapons of offense, ready on a moment's notice
to be used."

There also can be little doubt left in the mind as
to what the Allies mean by "Guaranties for a last-
ing peace," when they demand "a settlement cal-
culated ... to afford the only effective guarantee
for the future security of the world."

To guarantee lasting peace, as well as bring pres-
ent peace, as has been stated over and over again
by responsible ministers of the Allied governments,
by their press, by publicists and by open expres-
sions of public opinion, Prussian militarism and all
that it stands for must go.

90 The Creed of Deutschtum

Well, that is all very fine, but what guarantees
then can be given for the elimination of Prussian
militarism? Neither in answer to Germany or to
Mr. Wilson have the Allies consented to enter into
details and state what they demand for its accom-
plishment. We are left, therefore, to surmise and
to our own judgment.

So far as Prussian militarism is a state of mind
and so far as it is a system of ideals and aspirations
and will, these being elements of a national con-
sciousness, and therefore psychological, it must be
admitted that they cannot be directly destroyed by
military force. Indirectly, however, such a result
might ensue from a victorious outcome of the war
for the Allies. It may well come about that with
the object lesson of defeat before them a new light
will come to German statesmen, the military caste
and the deluded victims of the propaganda for
"Deutschland iiber Alles." It is quite within the
bounds of possibility that, without giving up their
pride of race and Kultur but realizing at last
whither Prussian militarism has led them — that in-
stead of a "place in the sun" they have been led
into the dark shadow of a world hostility, their colo-
nies gone, their future mortgaged by billions of
debt, millions of their sons killed or maimed for
life, morally boycotted by nearly all the people they
expected to conquer or whose rights they flaunted
—they will see that their ideals are incapable of
realization by force of arms and that militarism
doesn't pay. And in such a situation the will to

Prussian Militarism and a Lasting Peace 91

power may well give way to will to peace.

However that may be, so far as Prussian mili-
tarism is a system of government which has cre-
ated, instigated and put its ideals into effect
through the autocratic will 'of a limited caste mak-
ing use of a huge military organization, it can be
destroyed by destroying the political power of that
caste and disarming the organization at its disposal.

It is incredible, therefore, that if the Allies
achieve military victory — obtain "Peace with Vic-
tory"— and have the power to impose their will by
force, they will not, as their first step, insist upon
the elimination of the House of HohenzoUern.
Righteousness, justice, the judgment of "the su-
preme court of civilization," the public opinion of
the civilized world call aloud for it. That the Ger-
man Kaiser, the bully of Europe, who for twenty-
eight years, ever since he came to the throne has
been the responsible promoter of the war spirit
and Prussian aggression, the creator and patron of
the Prussian military caste and militarism, who has
used his great power to incite ideas of world domin-
ion and ruthlessness amongst his people — civilians
and soldiers, who has throttled the aspirations of
German Democracy, should be permitted to con-
tinue in his career would be a world calamity.

If in the event of victory the Allies shall use
their military force to rid the world of the power
for evil of the House of HohenzoUern they would
be supported by the gratitude of the world.

A New England Puritan divine once delivered

92 The Creed of Deutschtum

himself of this prayer in the Old South Meeting
House of Boston, "Oh, Lord, it is not for us to
advise; but if a storm should come, and should de-
stroy the enemy's fleet, Thine would be the glory
and we should be satisfied." * And so we along
with the rest of the neutral world may say to the
Entente Allies, "It is not for us to advise, but if
in your power and military victory you should rid.
the world of the House of HohenzoUern and its
military caste, thine would be the glory and we
should be satisfied."

That this is one of the purposes of the Allies and
that it is one of those "details" which they have very
respectfully said to our Government "will not be
made known," one does not need to be very deep
seeing to guess. Probably another of those details
included in their laudable object is to see to it that
there shall be brought about a limitation of the pre-
rogatives of the future Kaiser so that he would be
reduced to a position in the government similar to
that of the King of England and the sovereigns of
other parliament arily governed states; that is, a
true democratic government, with a ministry re-
sponsible to parliament and the people.

It would seem to be useless, when expecting a
guaranty of lasting peace, to change only the per-

* It may interest the curious to know that this was a historical epi-
sode commemorated by Longfellow in his "Ballad of the French
Fleet — October, 1746." It so happened that a storm did come and did
destroy the enemy's fleet; and the good people of Boston were satis-
fied, believing it to be a Divine intervention in response to their
worthy's prayer.

Prussian Militarism and a Lasting Peace 93

sonnel of a government and leave unmolested the
autocratic system of which any particular ruler is
the exponent. It is the system that is the menace
to the world. Only in the democratization of the
imperial system does the future hold out a hope of
a will to peace.

To the objection that to impose by force a form
of government upon the German people is to in-
terfere in the internal affairs of a people and vio-
lates one of the very principles for which the Allies
are contending — the right of each people to gov-
ern themselves and work out their own destinies
in their own way — the answer is obvious. Such
measures as I have imagined need not be brought
to fulfilment by direct forceful imposition. In the
event of military victory the Allies owe to those
who have died and those who have suffered in the
cause of Liberty that they shall not have died and
suffered in vain; and they owe to the generations
that are to come that they shall not have to undergo
the terrible sacrifices which this generation has ex-
perienced. They may rightly, therefore, insist that
they will make no terms until the German people
themselves come to the council chamber of peace
with a form of government which shall in itself of-
fer the same guaranty for the future that the de-
mocracy of the world offers to them. The guaran-
ties must be mutual and equal on both sides, and
they are not mutual and equal when on the one
side the terms are guaranteed by a democracy based
on and seeking the "natural and inherent rights of

94 The Creed of Deutschtum

mankind," and on the other by a Prussian autoc-
racy recognizing no such rights, nor international
law, the sanctity of treaties and the laws of human-
ity, but only Absolute Power and Will to conquest.
No terms of peace agreed upon between Powers
with such different ideals can be lasting. The En-
tente Allies may well insist, they owe it as an ob-
ligation to the dead and to the living, to the great
cause of civilization to insist, that there shall be no
peace until Germany can enter the council chamber
and say, "We have put our house in order, we have
reconstructed our government and are prepared to
be admitted to the democracy of the world." Amer-
ica, although at the moment still a neutral in war
but, having broken off diplomatic relations with
Germany, not a neutral in spirit, can not only sym-
pathize with but is interested in this insistence.

In principle this was the stand taken by the
North after the defeat of the armies of the South in
our civil war. As a guaranty of the maintenance
of the principles for which the war was fought vol-
untary "reconstruction" of State constitutions was
required for admission to the family of states united
on terms of equality.

In a world of democracy we may not impose
upon our neighbor how he shall order his own house,
but we may say to him we will not enter his home
nor shall he enter ours, we will boycott him, isolate
and ostracize him until he chains up his bulldog,
gives us the same guaranties for safe conduct that
we give to him.

Prussian 3Iilitarism and a Lasting Peace 95

Peace by Negotiation Impossible at This Time

When, then, you come to ask what do the Allies
mean when they demand that Germany shall give
assurances for future peace, when they declare they
will not make peace "so long as they have not
brought about a settlement calculated to end once
and for all forces which have constituted a perpet-
ual menace to the nations and to afford the only
effective guarantee for the future security of the
world," we can only think along the lines the pres-
ent situation imposes upon us. We must, however,
remember that the Allies cannot be asked in the
present uncertain stage of the war to define con-
cretely and explicitly the exact character and de-
tails of the "settlement" they broadly outline. Tac-
tical considerations forbid, before victory is actu-
ally achieved, and it would be foolish to cross the
bridges before they are reached. But if such "as-
surances" as I have imagined be required, is it con-
ceivable that, at a conference to negotiate peace
around a table, the House of Hohenzollern and the
Prussian military caste will agree to eliminate them-
selves? Or, if this demand be waived, that they
would or could surrender their ideals and will and
state of mind and policies of militarism, much less
their military organization?

Here seems to be an insuperable difficulty to
peace without victory — to peace by negotiation.
In the midst of negotiation there emerges the irrec-
oncilable conflict of ideals^ — the ideals of Prussian

96 The Creed of Deutschtum

autocracy and Prussian militarism manifesting
themselves through the Will to dominate the world
by force, on the one hand, and the ideals of democ-
racy with respect for the rights and privileges and
independence of all nations, great and small, on the
other. One of these must give way, or else all na-
tions must continue to live armed against one an-
other as in the past. For the democratic ideals to
give way means the regression of democracy and
the return to that order of things out of which civ-
ilization has been progressively but slowly emerg-
ing during the past one hundred years. For the
Prussian ideals to give way means the self-elim-
ination of the ruling classes in Germany and sub-
ordinating themselves to the will of a reconstructed
German people. It would seem then that the set-
tlement of this conflict can only come by the arbi-
trament of the sword, if it is to come at all out of
this war.

A Conflict Between Two Principles of
Government

It is well for us to face the fact, for all neutrals
to face the fact, that in this great European war
we have a conflict between two principles of gov-
ernment, between two civilizations: One founded
upon the principle of the inherent and natural rights
of mankind; the other founded on the principle of
militarism.

According to the one, all men possess natural

Prussian Militarism and a Lasting Peace 97

and inlierent rights which no government and no
majorities can take away; it maintains, besides, that
the rights and privileges of all nations and all peo-
ples shall be respected by all others ; that all nations
and all peoples shall be allowed peacefully to work
out their destinies in their own way so long as they
do not infringe upon the rights of others ; that they
shall not be dominated and menaced by the aggres-
sive covetousness of another nation determined to
impose its arbitrary will by military force.

According to the other, the will of the state is
the supreme will and the state that has the will and
the power has the right to take what it wants by
force and to use any methods which it deems neces-
sity requires.

This war is undoubtedly the culmination of an
irrepressible conflict of ideals that has been brew-
ing for years.

So long as these two ideals, behind which were
mighty forces, persisted, those forces sooner or later
were bound to clash in war. We can see now that
the Serbian question was only the occasion that
brought them into conflict. Lincoln said that this
American government could not "endure peiTQa-
nently half slave and half free. ... It will be-
come all one thing or all the other." Likewise I do
not believe that the nations of the world can en-
dure permanently half militaristic and half peace-
ful. They will become all one thing or all the other.
If one or more hold to the principles of militarism,
the war has shown that all the others must create

08 The Creed of Deutschturrt

and maintain mighty military establishments to
enforce their rights. Limitation of armaments and
a league to enforce arbitration and conciliation be-
fore a declaration of war (for that is what the pro-
posed "League to Enforce Peace" really is) can
modify the evil of militarism but cannot cure it.

Is America, then, "not concerned with the causes
and objects of the war" as has been said? On the
contrary, America cannot, I believe, look with in-
difference on the outcome of this war, as to which
ideal shall triumph. If the Prussian ideal shall sur-
vive, we shall of course have to maintain great arm-
aments in our own defense. But that is only a ma-
terial interest. What concerns us greatly more
are the moral principles involved — ^the possible tri-
umph of principles utterly hostile and abhorrent to
our system of government and the principles upon
which it is founded.

The fundamental principle underlying this con-
flict of ideals is one of right and wrong. The real
issue is a moral one. And I do not believe that this
government or our people can be indifferent to that
issue. I do not believe that when it is thoroughly
understood our people will be indifferent.

I am not referring to the methods of carrying
on the war pursued by Germany and her allies —
methods which have broken the international laws
of nations and the moral laws of humanity. These
are, I repeat, but particular applications of the
Prussian system of government and therefore of a
militarism which does not accept the laws of hu-

Prussian Militarism and a Lasting Peace 99

manity.

From the American point of view that system
is morally wrong because it violates the natural and
inherent rights of mankind. And therefore this
government and the American people cannot be in-
different as to how this war is settled, whether Prus-
sian militarism is left free or whether it is destroyed.
If it be left free the conflict of ideals and princi-
ples will still remain to threaten civilization. Lin-
coln's great antagonist, Douglas, said that he did
not "care whether slavery be voted up or voted
down" so long as the political conflict over the ex-
tension of slavery into the territories was settled.
But Lincoln refused to follow Douglas and accept
a policy as a settlement which was not based upon
the principle that slavery was wrong. For he held
that we could not justifiably withhold the legal
right of the South to extend their system excepting
on the ground that it was wrong. So now, I believe,
that we cannot logically oppose the applications
of the Prussian system, when they affect only the
lives and property and material rights of other na-
tions, excepting on the ground that the Prussian
system is morally wrong. Our Government, there-
fore, cannot be indifferent to the terms on which
peace is made. To paraphrase the words of Lin-
coln: we want and must have a national policy as
to Prussian militarism which deals with it as being
a wrong. Whoever would prevent militarism be-
coming international and perpetual yields all when
he yields to a policy which treats it either as being

100 The Creed of Deutschtum

right or as being a matter of indifference.

The people of the Allied Nations have set them-
selves the noble task of destroying Prussian mili-
tarism. So long as they are willing to make the aw-
ful sacrifices necessary to this end, we, who, so long
as we are neutral, are not called upon to make any
but insignificant sacrifices of a material nature,
should see to it that we do not hamper them in their
noble purpose; and, if we shall be drawn into the
war and become one of the allies, should lend all our
resources and all our power towards the accom-
plishment of that task. We would not be human if
we did not shrink from the spectacle of the appal-
ling loss of human life that this purpose entails, but
we should not forget the admonition of a celebrated
humane and manly divine, James Martineau:

The reverence for human life is carried to an immoral
idolatry when it is held more sacred than justice and
right, and when the spectacle of blood becomes more
horrible than the sight of desolating tyrannies and tri-
umphant hypocrisies.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE KAISER

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE KAISER*

[This essay has been published also in French, German
and Japanese translations and an incomplete edition was
published independently in England. The Japanese
translation was undertaken by the personal direction of
Marquis Okuma, when Prime Minister of Japan in 1916.
This distinguished statesman, becoming interested in some
of the political questions raised, brought the book to the
attention of His Majesty the Emperor and His Highness
the Crown Prince, as noted in the Japanese edition,
and wrote a foreword for the same. Professor Shiozawa,
whom I had the pleasure of meeting, also wrote an
introduction further amplifying, as he himself explains,
Marquis Okuma's views on German polity and the con-
trasting differences between Japanese and Geraian prin-
ciples of government. I have thought that this statement
presenting the Japanese viewpoint on some of the funda-
mental principles of government would be of interest to
Americans and the Western mind coming, as it does, from
such an authoritative source and one so qualified to ex-
plain Japanese thought and polity. Therefore a trans-
lation of Professor Shiosawa's introduction with Vicount
Okuma's foreword is included here with the original essay.

Of particular interest is the statement made by the
distinguished Japanese statesman, that "the spirit of
our [Japan's] national polity is fundamentally different
from that of Germany," although both are monarchical,
for that of Japan has been "the harmonious cooperation
of the Sovereign and the Subject." And what will, I be-
lieve, be surprising to Americans, "the Imperial House-
hold has, since the days of the gods (i.e., the prehistoric

* First printed in the New York (Sunday) Times, May 9, 1915.
Later published in book form, Boston: Richard G. Badger, 1915; re-
produced in this volume in lieu of a second edition.

103

104 The Creed of Deutscktum

age), considered it its mission to practice, and has con-
tinually and consistently been practisinj^ what the occi-
dentals would term 'democratic principles'. . . . The
will of the people has always been made the wall of the
Imperial Household."

Marquis Okuma's criticisms of the Kaiser and Germany
and his general views will also be found to have great
interest particularly at this time.

I trust that the complimentary allusions to the Amer-
ican author, probably written only for the Japanese
public, will be understood by the reader as only ex-
pressions characteristic of that Japanese etiquette which
is one of the charms of a people noted for their courtesy.
To delete them would be an ungraceful use of the edi-
torial prerogative and so I let them stand as they were
writ.

January, 1918.— M. P.]

FOREWORD BY

MARQUIS OKUMA

AND INTRODUCTION BY

PROFESSOR SHIOSAWA

This book had the honor of being read by His
Majesty the Emperor.

IS sir

This book had the honor of being read by His

Highness the Crown Prince.

FOREWORD BY MARQUIS OKUMA

Criticizing the life of Napoleon the Great, the
Kaiser once aptly remarked, "Alas for him! He
knew the enemy he had to deal with, but he did not
know himself. That was the cause of his final de-
feat." Napoleon himself confessed that he had
overestimated his own powers in believing that he
was equal to the task of achieving world domina-
tion and of making himself master of a great em-
pire. His pride, however, seemed to have entered
the marrow of his life, for he said in the same
breath, "The world shall never look upon my like
again." The well known adage that there was
no such word as impossible in his dictionaiy, was
uttered by him when he was at the height of his
self-confidence. Taking advantage of the golden
opportunity of the French Revolution, Bonaparte,
a native of Corsica, came to command the popu-
larity of the whole French nation. The fame of his
army was such that it resounded throughout the
length and breadth of the entire world and made
the whole of Europe tremble with fear. Indeed his
genius seemed to have bordered on the divine. Who
would have thought that he would have to bury his
bones in the lonely isle of St. Helena? Such, how-
ever, was his lot. Does not this show that any at-
tempt at world domination must necessarily end

107

108 The Creed of Deutschtum

in an empty dream?

Having been born in the royal family of the Ho-
henzollerns, and having been brought up according
to the traditional, teachings of Frederick the Great,
Kaiser Wilhelm came to believe that he was a hero
beyond parallel. It is doubtful, however, whether
his genius can ever compete with that of Napoleon.
Nevertheless he came to entertain the ambition of
world domination, and piu'sued the traditional mil-
itaristic policy of Frederick. Especially for the
last sixteen or seventeen years the Kaiser has de-
voted himself assiduously to the construction of a
world empire, and he has brought about the present
world war. Who can say that his fate will be dif-
ferent from that of his French predecessor?

Pride goes before a fall, and pride is, after all,
a sort of mental derangement. It is no wonder that
Dr. Prince should have directed his attention to
this phase of the Kaiser's psychology. To be proud
of one's powers, and to imagine the impossible as
within the bounds of the possible is a case of insan-
ity. It is as if a drunken man misbehaves himself
under the influence of liquors. A monarch with
but a brief history behind him, he had the arro-
gance to proclaim to the people: "The Imperial
throne is divinely ordained. The Hohenzollerns
alone are entitled to it by the special appointment
of Heaven." He not only tried eternally to pre-
serve his autocratic government within his own do-
minion but also attempted to realize the traditional
ambitions of Frederick the Great by bringing the

The Psychology of the Kaiser 109

whole world to his feet. Is not this a sign of his
mental derangement ?

Although the Kaiser criticized Napoleon as hav-
ing been ignorant of himself, yet it is doubtful
whether the Kaiser is himself free from such a
charge. The Book of Tactics says: "If one knows
both oneself and one's opponent, one is sure to win.
If one knows oneself but not the opponent, one may
win or lose. If one knows neither oneself nor the
opponent one is sure to suffer a defeat." If the
Kaiser failed to calculate the strength of England,
France, and Russia, the Kaiser did not know the
opponent. If the Kaiser failed to perceive that the
strength of Germany was unequal to meet the com-
bined forces of the Allies, he did not know himself.
Thus if he knew neither himself nor the enemy, how
could he escape the inevitable result as predicted
by the Chinese tactician?

It was his pride that brought him to his present
extremity. His blind ambitions deprived him of his
intelligence. Fighting, as he does, for no justifiable
cause, he has defiled the dignity of his army. The
German people who have been enjoying glorious
prosperity since Frederick the Great by mobilizing
the forces of the whole Empire, are now dissipating
all their resources, human as well as material, by
the mistaken policy of their leader. He is not only
bringing pain and misery into the lives of the peo-
ple of all nationalities, but has brought his German
people to the verge of ruin. Is this the way to be
the father of a nation? We shall not wonder if the

110 The Creed of Deutschtwm

people desert him. The present war will not only
leave an uneffaceable wound on the life and civili-
zation of the world at large, but it may also lose the
Kaiser the confidence of his people. This can by
no means be said to be conducive to the interests
of the Kaiser and of the Hohenzollerns. If the
Kaiser fails to observe these plain truths, he is
justly open to the charge of insanity.

I sincerely hope that this translation of Dr.
Prince's work will serve as a good lesson to the
proud and arrogant.

Marquis Okuma.

December, 1916.

INTRODUCTION BY PROFESSOR SHIOSAWA

Last summer Dr. Morton Prince, a noted Amer-
ican psychologist, visited our shores. One day,
through the introduction of Mr. Miyaoka, he had
an interview with Marquis Okuma at his Waseda
residence. I was present and had the privilege of
listening to the interesting conversation that passed
between the host and the guest. After a hearty
discussion of various subjects, such as the present
world politics, government, science, and psychol-
ogy, individual and racial, the doctor directed his
topics to the discussion of the conditions in Ger-
many, and especially of the Kaiser and his mili-
tarism. . . . We can well imagine the acuteness
of his observation, that penetrates into the very sore
spot in the personality he dissects. Incidentally
it will vouch for the value of his work on the psy-
chology of the Kaiser, of which he was kind enough
to send us a copy soon after through Mr. Miyaoka.
I then read the book to the Marquis and we dis-
cussed the subject.

The Marquis commented minutely on this work;
among other things he pointed out the fundamental
differences that exist between the spirit of our pol-
ity and that of Germany as elucidated by Dr.
Prince, the gist of which was as follows:

"The form of German polity, especially with

111

112 The Creed of Deutschtum

regard to the basis and powers of the Imperial
throne, seems to resemble ours at first sight, but if
we look a little closer into its substance we shall
find that the two are diametrically opposed. We
can well understand when an American gentleman
like Dr. Prince in reviewing the present German
monarchial system from his democratic standpoint
points out the incompatibility of monarchial gov-
ernment with democratic principles. For there is
no denying the fact that the present German mon-
archial principle has a tendency to come into con-
flict with democratic principles. We must not for-
get, however, that the spirit of our national polity
is fundamentally different from that of Germany.
With us the Imperial Household has since the days
of the gods (i. e., the pre-historic age) considered
it its mission to practice, and has continually and
consistently been practicing, what the Occidentals
would term 'democratic principles.' Thus the in-
terests of the Imperial Household and the interests
of the nation have been inseparably one, and have
never been known to come in conflict with each
other. Clear and unequivocal evidence may be said
to be scattered throughout every page of our his-
tory. Especially noteworthy are the cases of Em-
peror ISTintoku and Emperor Daigo, the former
shedding tears over the scanty smoke that ascended
from the roofs, the latter taking off his coat on a
chilly night to share the pain and suffering of the
poor. To say nothing of older examples which
abound in our history, the life and works of Em-

The Psychology of the Kaiser 113

peror Meiji, the Founder of New Japan, are just a
case in point. The traditional spirit of our Imper-
ial Household is well revealed in a letter to the peo-
ple accompanying the famous Five Articles, a part
of which was as follows: 'If any one of Our sub-
jects does not get his due at this reconstruction of
the entire government, it will be Our fault. We
can be true to Our heavenly mission and to the glor-
ious precedents of Our forefathers, only when We
devote Our body and soul to meet the present na-
tional diffilculties, and at the head of Our people at-
tain meritorious works in the footsteps of Our an-
cestors.'

"Thus the harmonious co-operation of the sov-
ereign and the subject having been the fundamental
basis of our national polity, no such thing has ever
existed in our history as a strife between the Im-
perial Household and the people. Look at Euro-
pean history and you will find a series of bitter
strifes between Kings and subjects, which some-
times unfortunately led to bloodshed. The absence
of such separation of the will of the people from
that of the sovereign, and the absence of any con-
flict of interests between the two, shows the supe-
riority of our polity in this respect. In other words,
with us the Imperial Household has always prac-
ticed democratic principles, and the will of the peo-
ple has always been made the will of the Imperial
Household. This is radically different from the
present autocratic government of Germany, which
governs in accordance not with the will of the peo-

114 The Creed of Deutschtum

pie but with the will of the Imperial Household.
As pointed out by Dr. Prince, the prerogatives of
the Kaiser aim at the protection of the interests
of the Imperial Household against the aggression
of the people, but the power of our Imperial
Household proceeds from the fundamental idea
that the interests of the sovereign and the subject
are inseparably one. There can be no interest of
the Imperial Household apart from the interest of
the people. What Dr. Prince says in criticism of
the prerogatives of the Kaiser is just and adequate
in the case of Germany, but you cannot justly ap-
ply his criticisms to the powers of our Imperial
Household because of this basic difference.

"Dr. Prince, starting from his strong American
democratic standpoint, and reviewing the selfish
government of Germany, expresses deep sympathy
with the German social democrats. That is nat-
ural enough for an American gentleman. But we
must remember that each country has its own his-
tory, its own manners and customs, and its own
complex elements of national life. Just as the
plants differ according to the soil in which they are
cultivated, so the government of each people must
differ in its form and its workings. What an
American thinks fit and proper may not necessa-
rily be so in another country, any more than what
the Germans think best can be imposed upon other
nations. The statement of Dr. Prince in this re-
spect must not be applied without reservation to
our social conditions.

The Psychology of the Kaiser 115

"If the reader reads this work with these points
in mind, he will find it very interesting and instruc-
tive. Erudite scholar as Dr. Prince is, he wields
his sharp dissecting knife so skilfully that it never
fails to touch the sore spot of personality. In one
passage especially he delineates the process by
which an ambition based on selfish pride finally re-
sults in bringing a nation into ruin and throwing
the whole world into trouble. This is a good moral
not only to emperors and Kings but to anybody
who has the welfare of a people at heart. His quo-
tation in one passage of an arrogant nobleman
makes the story highly dramatic."

The above is a mere outline of the Marquis'
remarks on this book. Later I personally visited
Dr. Prince and explained the Marquis' view to him,
and especially the passage of the Emperor Meiji
above quoted. The learned doctor nodded assent
and said, "Since I came to Japan I have carefully
studied the relation of the Imperial Household to
the people, and have come to share the view of Mar-
quis Okuma that in Japan the nation practices dem-
ocratic principles under the leadership of the Im-
perial Household, and that in that respect the Im-
perial Household of Japan is different from that
of Germany."

In short, this work attempts to dissect the psy-
chology of the Kaiser with the political conditions
of Germany as its background. The discussion is
always to the point. It reveals the true position of
the Kaiser and lays bare political conditions in Ger-

116 The Creed of Deutsclitum

many. It shows clearly the antagonism prevalent
in Germany between the autocratic and democratic
ideas, the understanding of which is the only key
to the German political relations. As was pointed
out by Marquis Okuma, the discussion is not for-
mally in accord with our line of thought. Strip it
of its outer garments, however, and you find that
the spirit in which it was written is in harmony
with ours. It will undoubtedly serve as the pro-
verbial stone of another mountain to polish our own
gems.

As Dr. Prince has consented to the translation
of his book by any competent translator, I asked
my friend, Mr. Yuya Goma, to do the work, and
I have revised the manuscript with utmost care.
We hope that the present translation is enough to
convey the idea of the author to our public.

Shotei Shiosawa,
Hogakuhakushi.

December, 1916.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE KAISER

THE KAISER S ANTIPATHY

IN the consciousness of the Kaiser there is noth-
ing that is more dominant than his increasing
and virulent antipathy to a great body of citi-
zens constituting no less than one-third of his
empire^ — the Social Democrats.

We have all read of the Kaiser's hatred of the
party known as the Social Democratic Party. We
have read the epithets which he has constantly
hurled at them, and of his antipathy to their creeds.
"Traitors," "a plague that must be exterminated,"
"a horde of men unworthy to bear the name of Ger-
mans," "foes to the country and empire," "people
without a country and enemies of religion," he has
called them.

To a delegation of striking miners he said:

For me every Social Democrat is synonymous with an
enemy of the empire and of his country. If, therefore, I
believe that there are any Socialist tendencies in the move-
ment [the strike of 100,000 men], stirring up to unlawful
resistance, I shall act with merciless rigor and bring to
bear all the power at my disposal — which is great.

Again:

117

118 The Creed of Deutschtum

The doctrines of the Social Democrats are not only
opposed to the commandments of God and Christian
morality but are also altogether unpractical, being equally
injurious to the individuals and the whole community.

So violent is the hatred of the Kaiser toward this
party that he even has thought it might come to
suppressing it by the army. He said to the young
soldiers at Potsdam:

For you there is only one foe, and that is my foe. In
view of our present Socialist troubles, it may come to
this, that I command you to shoot down your own rela-
tives, brothers, and even parents, in the streets, which
God forbid; but then you must obey my orders without
a murmur.

Why so much feeling? Why such recurrent out-
bursts of anger and hatred against a political party
which in numbers is twice as large as any other
single party in the empire, a party which in 1912
cast 4,250,000 votes * and which was represented

* The total vote cast was 12,207,000. The number of Social Demo-
crats elected was not fairly proportionate to the voting strength of
the party owing to the inequality of representation of the urban and
rural districts. The distribution of seats in the Reichstag has not been
changed since 1871, more than forty years ago, when the constitution
under Bismarck was adopted. During this time the population of
Germany has increased from approximately 40,000,000 to about 68,-
000,000 and the cities and industrial centres have gained enormously
in population, relatively to the rural districts, and what were agri-
cultural towns have become industrial centres and manufacturing com-
munities. Consequently, one result of the election laws is that the
cities and industrial and manufacturing centres where the Social
Democrats preponderate have very small representation, while the
rural districts where the conservatives (Junkers) are a majority have
a disproportionately large representation. Thus greater Berlin with
850,000 voters, where the Social Democrats are in a vast majority, is
represented in the Reichstag by only eight members while the same

The Psychology of the Kaiser 119

in the German parliament in 1912 by 110 members,
the representatives of over 21,000,000 people,
nearly one-third of the population ?

number of voters in the small rural districts are represented by forty-
eight members.

The inequalities of representation in the State Legislatures and city
governments are due to the peculiar election laws existing in the
different states of Germany. In Prussia, for example, there is what
is called the "three-class system." The voters are divided into three
classes according to the amount of taxes paid, the total taxes being
divided into three equal parts. "Then, starting with the highest tax-
payers, those voters whose taxes total the first third of taxes paid
constitute the first class of electors. They are the wealthiest men and
naturally are smallest in numbers.

"The second class is made up of those electors who pay taxes equal
to the second division. Their number is a little larger. The third
class is made up of all the rest of the voters.

"Each class elects the same number of deputies to the [Prussian]
Reichstag [Diet]. Obviously the respectable middle class composed
of that element in Continental politics known as the bourgeoisie
throws its vote with that of the aristocracy against the people at
large. In one careful analysis of this system the ratio in the division
was roughly as follows: one voter in the first class; thirty-two voters
in the second class; three hundred and fifty voters in the third
class.

"Now the exclusive gentleman in the first class elected just as many
members of the Reichstag [Diet] as did the 350 workingmen in the
third class, or the thirtj'-two well-to-do business men in the second
class." (The Kaiser, edited by Asa Don Dickenson, p. 105.)

Again: The city of Berlin in 1910 with a population of 2,000,000
was governed by 33,063 persons, owing to the three-class system of
voting.

S. P. Orth (Socialism and Democracy in Europe) gives various
instances of the inequality which appears in the cities. "In Berlin
in one precinct one man paid one-third of the taxes and consequently
possessed one-third of the legislative influence in that precinct. In
another precinct the president of a large bank paid one-third of the
taxes, and two of his associates paid another third. ITiese three men
named the member of the Diet from that precinct."

In Saxony the electorate is divided into four classes according to
their income. The members of each class have respectively 1, 2, 3,

120 The Creed of Deutschtum

These are strong words of the Kaiser's I have
quoted. They are not mere invectives uttered dur-
ing the heat of a political campaign. They are not
to be classed with those emotional castigations with
which political stump-speech orators, working
themselves up to a state of passionate indignation,
flay their adversaries, and which are promptly for-
gotten as soon as the campaign is ended — albeit the
Kaiser is essentially a stump-speech orator.

We have all learned not to take seriously the
ephemeral indignation of the political orator. But
the Kaiser's denunciation of the Social Democrats
is the expression of an antipathy which is fixed,
deep-rooted, persistent, and is a part of his person-
ality, for it has manifested itself in the form of
recurrent attacks of anger and hatred ever since
he came to the throne, twenty-seven years ago. It
is like unto an obsessing idea, common enough,
which, fixed deep down in the mind, rises in con-
sciousness whenever its object presents itself.

Fixed antipathies are always, for the psycholo-
gist, objects of interesting study, but for others,
even in an Emperor, they are little more than mat-

and 4 votes. Consequently, in 1909, 18,491 voters of the fourth class,
having 4 votes each, cast 73,964 votes, while 39,567 voters of the
first class cast only 32,567.

Corresponding inequalities of representation necessarily followed.
In consequence of all these conditions ballot reform was the prin-
cipal immediate issue of the Social-Democratic party before the war.

It may also be pointed out that the 4,250,000 votes cast by the
Social Democrats in 1912 do not represent the whole opposition to
the autocracy, inasmuch as certain liberal groups, the progressives and
the people's party cast together 1,506,000 votes.

The Psychology of the Kaiser 121

ters of intellectual curiosity unless the antipathy
is one of practical political import, one that affects
the policies of Government and the course of his-
tory.

If the antipathy of the Kaiser were only of that
trivial kind common to many people, which is mani-
fested as a dread of snakes, or of death, or other
banal object, its study would be of little practical
interest excepting for its victim, William II. him-
self, although the revelation of its origin and mean-
ing would give an insight into one component, how-
ever unimportant, of an exalted personality.

The periodical recurrence of the antipathy and
the psychological reactions to which it gave rise
would probably affect the happiness of no one but
himself and the unhappy members of his family
who would have to bear the brunt of it. No one is
interested in other people's symptoms.

But it is different when such a recurring antipa-
thy is of a political nature. Then by a study of
the underlying causes of this obsessing idea we not
only can obtain an insight into important compon-
ents of the personality of a great historical char-
acter, but we should expect to find the true motives
which have determined those policies of Govern-
ment and the course of history which have been the
direct result of the antipathy.

The Kaiser's hatred of the Social Democrats has
had momentous practical consequences. It is safe
to say that it has been more than any other single
factor the motive which has determined him to

122 The Creed of Deutschtum

maintain, against the progressive spirit of modern
civilization, the present autocratic system of gov-
ernment, to resist all liberal attempts to change the
Constitution so as to give responsible representa-
tive government to the people and to defend what
he claims as his prerogatives. It has determined
other tyrannous measures which have suppressed
freedom of speech and the press and banefully op-
pressed the liberty of the German people. I re-
fer to the law of lese-majeste.

This law, a return to the feudalism of the Mid-
dle Ages, is the means the Kaiser employs to punish
those who talk back. He may insult his subjects,
call them all manner of names, misrepresent their
principles, their purposes and ideals, excite animos-
ity against them "as enemies to the country and
religion," but if they answer back they are met by
the law of lese-majeste, and this law is enforced, as
every one knows, with merciless severity to sup-
press political opponents.

Against the Democrats the law has been used
as a weapon of suppression, though without suc-
cess. Under this law statistics showed that up to
1898, during only the first decade of William II. 's
reign, more than 1,000 years of imprisonment had
been inflicted upon offenders. A recent responsible
writer asserts that up to 1914 the sentences had
reached 30,000 years, but I do not know upon what
authority these figures are based.

It is not surprising that editors of Social Demo-
cratic newspapers, many political leaders of the

The Psychology of the Kaiser 123

party, and writers for the Democratic press have
been among those who have served terms in prison
for lese-majeste, or offense against the press law.

There have been times when scarcely a week
passed without three or four trials. But against
the Social Democratic members of the Reichstag
when making use of their prerogatives as elected
representatives of the people, this law has not been
sufficient to satisfy the Kaiser's animosity. So on
one occasion when they refused to rise and cheer
him, in response to a demand, the Kaiser had intro-
duced, through his Chancellor, a bill to permit the
criminal prosecution of these delegates. To its
credit, be it said, the majority refused to permit
this encroachment upon its rights.

It is safe to say that such a criminal law as lese-
majeste and its abuse for political purposes in Eng-
land would cost the King his crown.

To this antipathy of the Kaiser may also be
traced in large part responsibility for the consoli-
dation of the autocratic and military party in Ger-
many. For, by suppressing the political power of
the only militant party that has opposed this autoc-
racy, the Kaiser has been enabled to solidify his
power and intrench himself with his army as the
dominating political force which has determined the
foreign policies of the empire.

It is safe to say that if the democracy had been
in power, or if the constitutional system of govern-
ment had been such that the Social Democratic
Party, in and out of the Reichstag, could have made

124 The Creed of Deutschtum

its influence felt, the foreign and military policies
and methods of the Government would have been
far different and there would have been no war.
GeiTXianism and Pan-Geimanism would not have
threatened the world, t

t Surprise has been expressed that the Social Democrats, in view
of their avowed principles and tlieir platform, did not in the begin-
ning throw their influence against the war, but are patriotically sup-
porting the government. In other words, that there is a United
Fatherland. There is no question that the Social Democrats were
bitterly opposed to this war and yet they cast their 111 votes in the
Reichstag unanimously in favor of the war budget, but it was after
war had been declared by the Upper House and the Emperor.

This seems on the face of the facts a complete reversal of the
Party policy and yet it is easily understood.

The Social Democrats, though opposed to militarism and war, are
first and all the time patriots. They have always declared that if
the Fatherland were attacked they would rally to its defense, and
all the world knows that the German people as a whole have been
made to believe that the Fatherland was attacked.

In 1907 Bebel, then leader of the Party, declared in a debate in
the Reichstag that if the Fatherland were attacked even he, in his
old age, would "shoulder a musket" in its defense. And in the next
Party Convention he declared:

"I said, if the Fatherland really must be defended, then we will
defend it. Because it is our Fatherland. It is the land in which
we live, whose language we speak, whose culture we possess. Be-
cause we wish to make this, our Fatherland, more beautiful and
more complete than any other land on earth. We defend it, thei'e-
fore, not for you but against you."

Likewise Von VoUmar later said in the Bavarian Diet:
"If the necessity should arise for the protection of the realm
against foreign invasion, then it will become evident that the Social
Democrats love their Fatherland no less than do their neighbors;
that they will as gladly and heroically offer themselves to its de-
fense. On the other hand, if the foolish notion should ever arise to
use the army for the support of a warring class prerogative, for the
defense of indefeasible demands, and for the crushing of those
just ambitions which are the product of our times, and a necessary
concomitant of our economic and political development, — then we
are of the firm conviction that the day will come when the army will

The Psychology of the Kaiser 125

More than this, it is impossible, I believe, for
any one to study the internal politics of Germany
without arriving at tlie firm conviction that the

remember that it sprcing' from the people, and that its own in-
terests are those of tlie masses."

As S. P. Orth, from whose work I take these quotations, says,
"This makes their position very clear."

When war was declared tlie position which the Social Democrats
were obliged to take was also clear. It was not a question of oppos-
ing the war. As Patrick Henry declared, in his famous speech at
the beginning of our own Revolution, "Gentlemen may cry 'Peace !
Peace !' But there is no Peace. The war has actually begun." And
so with the Social Democrats, it was only a question of voting sup-
plies. The Social Democrats disclaimed all responsibility for the
war. As Deputy Haase said in the Reichstag in explanation of the
vote of his colleagues:

"The responsibility for this calamity falls upon those who are
responsible for the imjierial policies that led to it. We absolutely
decline all responsibility. The Social Democrats fought this policy
with all their might. At this moment, however, the question before
us is not war, or no war. The war is here. The question now is one
of defence of the country. Our nation and the future of its liberty
are jeopardized by a possible victory of Russian despotism, the
hands of which are stained with blood of the best of its own nation.
Against this danger it is our duty to secure the culture and in-
dependence of our land."

And the Vonixierln, the official organ of the Social Democrats, on
July 30th, just before the declaration of war, announced:

"We are opposed to militarism, and we reaffirm our opposition
to monarchism, to which we have always been opposed, and always
will be. We have been compelled from the first to lead a bitter
.struggle against the temperamental wearer of the crown. We
recognize, however, and we have stated it repeatedly, that William
II. has proved himself to be a sincere friend of peace among the
nations, particularly in later years. . . . But even the strongest
character is not entirely free from influence, and we regret to say
that proofs are accumulating in abundance that the clique of war
shouters have been at work again to influence the government in
favor of the devastation of the whole of Europe. . . .

"In England it is the general opinion that the German Kaiser in
his capacity as the ally and adviser of Austria was the arbiter in

126 The Creed of Deutschtum

elimination of German militarism, for which the
war is being waged, and therefore the hope of per-
manent world's peace, must rest upon the German
Democratic Party. From this viewpoint, the study
of the Kaiser's antipathy for the Social Demo-
crats offers a most fruitful psychological study.

Why, then, I repeat, so much feeling when the
Kaiser thinks of the Social Democratic Party?
Why such hatred of it? Why such anger? Why
such a personal attitude?

To explain it on the ground of differences in
political principles, as a political antipathy intensely
expressed in terms of an intense emotional per-
sonality, is a superficial and inadequate psycholog-
ical explanation, although it is commonly satisfying
as a political explanation. The two are not synony-
mous. The reasons for this distinction will appear
as we proceed.

If the party represented only a small band of
criminal agitators, of militant anarchists, let us
say, who sought by assassination and terrorism to
destroy the existing Government, such an attitude
of mind would be easily comprehensible and would
need no analysis. But the Social Democratic Party

this trouble and had it in his power to let peace or war fall from

the folds of his royal robes. And England is right. As conditions

are, William II. has the decision in his hands."

It will thus be seen that although the Social Democrats feel that
the Kaiser and the military party are to blame for the war, they
also necessarily feel that as patriots they must support the Fatherland
as would be the case with any party in any country. But it also
follows that if the Democracy had been in control of the govern-
ment of Germany there would have been no war.

The Psychology of the Kaiser 127

in 1888, on the accession of William II, on the
basis of one voter in every five of the population,
represented less than 4,000,000 subjects, and in
1912 over 21,000,000, a third of the total popula-
tion.J It is, therefore, representative of a large
part of the public opinion of the empire, and, above
all, of the working classes. Indeed, it is the largest
political party in the empire. Criminal agitation
is, therefore, out of the question.

In other countries political feeling in times of
crises often runs high, and at times statesmen,
rulers, leaders of political parties generally, have
strong political bias and feel intensely hostile to
their political opponents; but they do not regard
them as foes of their country, and God, and religion,
to be crsuhed by every force in the power of the
Government; and they rarely carry their hostility,
and anger, and hatred into social and industrial life,

:{: The steady growth of the Social Democratic Party has been
phenomenal and is of importance in the bearing it has upon the
future. In 1871 the party cast only 134,000 votes and from that time
to 1912 there has been an almost continuous increase, as may be
seen from tlie following table:

1871 124,000

1874 • 352,000

1877 493,009

1878 437,000

1881 312,000

1884 550,000

1887 763,000

1890 1,427,000

1893 1,787,000

1898 2,107,000

1903 3,011,000

1907 3,259,000

1912 4,250,000

128 The Creed of Deutschtum

as has been the case with the German Emperor.

Furthermore, the persistency of the Emperor's
antipathy is remarkable. It is hke an obsession. He
has retained, undiminished, his hatred of the Social
Democrats from his accession to the outbreak of the
war, and has never ceased to angrily stigmatize
them with such emotional epithets as I have cited.

Now it is probable, owing to a psj'-chological law,
that when strong emotion, out of all apparent pro-
portion to the cause, is excited by some object, that
object has struck some sentiment, a "complex" of
ideas and emotions deeply rooted in the personal-
ity, but not squarely admitted and faced by con-
sciousness. Examples of this we see every day.

A strong protectionist inveighs with intense anger
against the principle of free trade and the political
party that advocates this principle in its platform.
The reason he consciously gives is the economic dis-
advantage which, he apprehends, will result to the
country at large. But though this may be the rea-
son, or rather one reason for his political opinion,
it is not the real reason for his emotion — his anger
and his invectives.

These are due to the fact that the free-trade doc-
trine strikes a chord within him which resonates with
selfish fear for his own business interests, and the
reaction of this chord is anger. In other words,
to use a homely phrase, while apparently speaking
from the viewpoint of political principles, he is real-
ly "talking out of his pocket." But he does not
squarely face and perhaps is only half conscious

The Psychology of the Kaiser 129

or entirely unconscious of this fact. This selfish
viewpoint is his "unconscious attitude of mind."

Now, is the Kaiser's antipathy to the Social Dem-
ocrats merely the expression of an academic dis-
belief in the INIarxian principles of Socialism and a
disbelief in the practicability of such principles if
applied by the State to political government? Or
are these only ostensible reasons for his antipathy?
If the latter, a study of the Kaiser's mind ought to
reveal deep-rooted sentiments of another kind which
will explain his emotional reaction. But in that case,
for a complete explanation, we must inquire what
there is that is peculiar in the political tenets of
the Social Democracy that touches these sentiments
and excites the reaction. In other words, it is a
question of the Why.

These questions rise above a banal curiosity to
inquire into a peculiar personal dislike of an Em-
peror, however that might be justified by the exalted
world-position which he occupies. They are im-
portant in that, if pursued, they may lead to a
deeper understanding of his personality, and they
may unfold both his viewpoint of government as
exemplified by the German system and the antag-
onistic viewpoint of the German Democracy, which
for many years has been striving against the power
of the Emperor to force its ideals and aspirations
upon the autocracy that rules Germany.

All these questions are involved in the psychology
of the personality of the Kaiser. The political
questions are involved, for no personality can be

130 The Creed of Deutschtum

understood apart from its environment to which it
reacts, and which is largelj^ responsible for the for-
mation of "sentiments."

The sentiments are of prime and fundamental
importance in the formation of a personality. I use
the term "sentiments" in a restricted psychological
sense and not in accordance with popular usage. I
shall have occasion later to explain how sentiments
are formed after we have become acquainted with
some of the Kaiser's mental attitudes.

Meanwhile I would simply explain in justifica-
tion of this inquiry, that character depends upon
the psycho-physiological organization of ideas, de-
rived in the broadest sense from life's experiences,
with the innate primitive instinctive dispositions to
behave or react to given situations (i. e., to react
to the environment).

Thus, on the one hand, sentiments are formed
which characterize our attitude toward life, includ-
ing therein our personal, social, political, and indus-
trial relations to the world about us; and, on the
other, the inborn natural instincts of man are har-
nessed, controlled, and repressed, or cultivated and
given free rein. Upon the development of senti-
ments, therefore, not only the behavior of the in-
dividual depends, but the whole social organization.
Of course, in a brief article of this kind we shall be
obliged to limit ourselves to a few of the sentiments
involved in the questions placed before us and there-
fore to a very limited study of the Kaiser's per-
sonality.

The Psychology of the Kaiser 131

THE KAISER S PREROGATIVES

Let US go back to the year 1888, when the Kaiser
came to the throne. In his very first speech to the
Prussian Diet he proclaimed with noticeable em-
phasis that he was "firmly resolved to maintain in-
tact and guard from all encroachment the char-
tered prerogatives of the Crown." (The Kaiser,
edited by Asa Don Dickenson, page 113.) It was
noticed that he laid marked stress on these words,
so that it was publicly commented upon by those
who heard him. This intention to defend his pre-
rogatives the Kaiser has consistently maintained
ever since, and more than once has proclaimed.
What are the "prerogatives" about which the Kaiser
took the very first opportunity to warn Germany
and about which he has been so tenacious? They
can be briefly stated.

In the first place, we must know it is the Kaiser's
prerogative not to be responsible to the people or
to Parliament, but only to himself. He does not
derive his power from either, but he reigns by his
own right. This is his prerogative. Furthermore,
he not only reigns, but it is his prerogative to gov-
ern. The King of England reigns, but, as has so
often been said, he does not govern. In England
the responsibility for governing rests entirely with
the Ministry, which in principle is only a select com-

132 The Creed of Deutschtum

mittee of Parliament. It is the English Parlia-
ment, therefore, and practically the elected House
of Commons that governs.

In the second place it is the Kaiser's prerogative
to appoint a Chancellor to help him govern. He
has no Cabinet, nor Board of Advisors. The Chan-
cellor is responsible only to the Emperor. Par-
liament may be entirely opposed to him, but in such
case he does not necessarily resign, as would the
British Prime Minister, nor is it the customary
usage. He may not have been a member of Par-
liament when appointed. The Kaiser alone may
dismiss him, as he dismissed Bismarck. The Em-
peror may disregard him and his advice, if he likes ;
so that in practice he may be his own Chancellor,
as it is commonly said in Germany he has been ever
since Bismarck's dismissal and as Bismarck fore-
told would be the case.

A third prerogative is to appoint the Ministers,
the heads of the great departments — Navy, Foreign
Affairs, Colonies, etc., who are under the Chancel-
lor. Thus all executive power resides in the Kaiser.
Parliament has none. We may say it is the Kaiser's
prerogative to be the administration.

A fourth prerogative is to be Commander in
Chief of the Army and to have absolute authority
over the forces of the army both in peace and in
war. (Art. 63 of the Constitution.) It is his pre-
rogative to "determine the numerical strength, the
organization, and the divisional contingents of the
imperial army"; also to appoint all superior offi-

The Psychology of the Kaiser 133

cers. (Art. 64*. ) That the Kaiser regards this as
one of his most cherished prerogatives the world well
knows.

A fifth and exceedingly powerful prerogative is
to appoint and control the seventeen members of
the upper house — the Bundesrath, or Federal Coun-
cil:— the most powerful upper house in the world.
The Kaiser thus has the votes— only fourteen being
required — to defeat any amendment to the Consti-
tution, and in practice he has always controlled a
majority of the Council, which has been the creature
of the Kaiser throughout its history. With the con-
sent of the Council he can declare war, but, as the
Council is a lady of easy consent, this limitation
need not bear hardly and the wooing need be but
short and light.

A sixth prerogative is to initiate all legislation,
although indirectly, through his controlled Federal
Council, of which the Chancellor is President. The
lower house, the Reichstag, elected by the people,
cannot initiate legislation, so well did Bismarck fix
the Constitution for the benefit of Prussia and the
Kaiser.

All measures must originate in the upper house,
which can also veto them when amended in the
Reichstag, and can dissolve the latter (with the
Kaiser's consent) if it doesn't like its ways. (Think
of the House of Lords dissolving the Commons!)
The Kaiser has thus very great power in controlling
legislation. (With almost innumerable parties,
none of which has a majority, in the House, log-

134 The Creed of Deutschtum

rolling under an astute Chancellor has been raised
to a fine art that would make an American State
Legislature blush like a neophyte. )

The Reichstag, however, can refuse to vote sup-
plies and to pass measures favored by the Kaiser.
The elected representatives of the people can thus
talk, resolve and criticise, and refuse to follow the
Kaiser and thus create a public opinion which he
may or may not dare to oppose, but they can do
little more.

Ill

THE KAISER S DIVINE RIGHT DELUSION

Finally, the Kaiser claims that his prerogative to
govern is derived from God, granted by the Al-
mighty to his House, the House of Hohenzollern.
This is far from being meant as a figure of speech
or mere rhetoric, or an allegorical expression of re-
ligious responsibility for duties to be performed.
It is a deep, all-abiding belief and principle of ac-
tion.

It is difficult for us Americans of the twentieth
century fully to grasp this belief in a present-day
man of boasted culture, from whom we expect com-
mon sense. We may laugh at it, but in its prac-
tical consequences it is no laughing matter. It is
fundamental to the Kaiser's viewpoint and to an
understanding of his attitude toward his subjects

The Psycliology of the Kaiser 135

and the world. Another sovereign derives his right
to reign, if not to govern, from the Constitution of
his country, which means in the last analysis by
contract with his people.

But the German Emperor refuses to acknowledge
any responsibility to the people, or any dependence
upon the people, or the Constitution, or contract,
for his right to govern. He derives this right di-
rectly from God. Whatever rights and powers the
people possess descend from the Kaiser, who grants
them through the Constitution ; the rights and pow-
ers of the Kaiser do not ascend from the people,
as in a democracy.

The concentration of irresponsible hereditary
power in one man and those appointed by him is
plainly an autocracy. "The Divine right of Kings
to rule" is a doctrine dating back to the Middle
Ages, and is by Americans naively supposed to
have ended nearly a century ago with the dissolu-
tion of the "Holy Alliance," whose designs upon
South America gave rise to our Monroe Doctrine
in 1823.

This doctrine of Divine right, then, is one of the
prerogatives, if not in his mind the great preroga-
tive, which the Kaiser announced he was resolved
to defend. And it does not belong to the present
Kaiser alone, but was possessed, as he claims, by
his long line of ancestors of the House of Hohen-
zollern, and will descend to his successors of this
house. It is the prerogative of his house. Thus he
announced :

136 The Creed of Deutschtum

It is the tradition of our house that we, the Hohenzol-
lerns, regard ourselves as appointed by God to govern
and to lead the people whom it is given us to rule, for
their well-beina; and the advancement of their material
and intellectual interests.

And again:

I look upon the people and nation handed on to me as a
responsiblity, conferred upon me by God: and that it is,
as is written in the Bible, my duty to increase this heri-
tage, for which one day I shall be called upon to give an
account ; those who try to interfere with my task I shall
crush.

And again:

I regard my whole position as given to me direct from
heaven, and that I have been called by the Highest to
do His work, by One to Whom I must one day render an
account.

This claim as German Emperor, or as King of
Prussia, has been announced again and again by the
Kaiser, and his words have been quoted by the
press, by magazine writers and pamphleteers and
bookmakers unto weariness of the reader.

The prerogatives we have briefly simimarized are
imperial, but be it noted they are double-headed in
that — mutatis mutandis — they also belong to Wil-
liam II as King of Prussia so far as the constitu-
tional relations of the kingdom to the empire make
them applicable.

The odd notion of Divine right the Kaiser picked
up from his grandfather, William I, who, when he
was crowned King of Prussia at Konigsberg, to
show he was above the Constitution which his pred-

The Psychology of the Kaiser 137

ecessor had granted the people, raised with his own
hands the crown from the altar, "set it on his own
head, and announced in a loud voice, 'I receive this
crown from God's liand and from none other.' "

And, referring to this historical incident, the pres-
ent Kaiser, William II., in a speech, now historic,
at the same place, said:

And here my grandfather, again, by his own right, set
the Prussian crown upon his head, once more distinctly
empliixsizing the fact that it was accorded him by the will
of God alone, and not by Parliament or by any assem-
blage of the people or by popular vote, and that he thus
looked upon himself as the chosen instrument of Heaven,
and as such performed his duties as regent and sovereign.

From a psychological point of view, it does not
matter — any more than it signified anything to the
Kaiser and his grandfather — that, as a matter of
fact, the first ruling Hohenzollern of Branden-
burg, Elector Frederick I., acquired his title to the
Electorate by taking from King Sigismund of
Hungary, in 1411, a mortgage on the province (the
nucleus of modern Prussia) as security for a loan
to that hard-up potentate of about one hundred
thousand gulden. A little later he foreclosed the
mortgage and took title — a rather poor title at that,
as there was already a mortgage on the property
which it was convenient for Sigismund to repudiate.
Perhaps royal second mortgages — like marriages —
are made in Heaven, and thus they become "Divine
Rights."*

* In 1701 Elector Frederick III. took the title of (first) King of
Prussia as Frederick I.

138 The Creed of Deutschtum

What does psychologically matter is that the pres-
ent Kaiser has persuaded himself, forgetting all
about this business transaction, that his early
Hohenzollern Shylock (in foreclosing the mort-
gage) "felt within himself the call to journey to
this land" of Brandenburg — plainly a Divine call
— and "was convinced that the task [of governing]
was given him from above." (Kaiser's speech, Feb.
3, 1899.)

What counts psychologically is that the Kaiser
believes that a Divine right to rule is his preroga-
tive. How, in this age, a man who has shown such
marked ability in certain directions can be such a
fool — I mean psychologically, of course — as to per-
suade himself to believe such stuff, is another story
that would make an interesting psychological study
in itself, and in the last analysis could probably be
traced to subconscious wishes which have produced
this conscious delusion, just as such subconscious
processes determine the delusions of insane peo-
ple.

Our conscious thoughts are much more deter-
mined by subconscious processes, of which we are
unaware, than we realize.

One great popular delusion is that our minds are
more exact logical instruments than they really are,
and we stand in awe of the minds of great men,
thinking that because they are superior in certain
directions, therefore they are superior in all other
directions of their activities where they claim su-
periority; whereas, as a matter of fact, a man may

The Psychology of the Kaiser 139

be eminently superior in certain fields of mental
activity and psychologically a perfect fool-thinker
and fool-performer in other fields.

Helmholtz said of the eye that it was such an
imperfect optical instrument that if an instrument
maker should send him an optical instrument so
badly made he would refuse to accept it and return
it forthwith. He might have said the same thing of
the human mind. It is a very imperfect instrument
of thought. All we can say of it is that though a
poor thing it is the best we can get. The deeper
insight we get into the mechanism of the human
mind, the poorer thing it appears as an instrument
of precision.

This Divine Right delusion is psychologically in-
teresting in that it very closely resembles and be-
haves like the delusions characteristic of the mental
disease paranoia. This is not to say — indeed it
would be absurd to say as some have said — that the
Kaiser is afflicted with paranoia. But it is true
that in normal people we find the prototypes of
mental processes observed in abnormal mental con-
ditions. The essential characteristic of paranoia is
a systematized delusion: that is, some belief into
which all sorts of facts of the environment are in-
terwoven and through which such events, casual ac-
tions of other people and their motives are inter-
preted. Thus, an insane person may imagine he is
the object of persecution and then proceed to in-
terpret any kind of act of others, really unrelated
to himself, through this belief, imagining that it is

140 The Creed of Deutschtum

directed towards the end of persecuting him. Or a
paranoiac may imagine that he is the divine emissary
of God and then interpret one hundred and one
everyday events of Ufe as divine messages to him-
self.

In normal people we see the prototype of such
a delusion in the form of a mildly fixed idea which
leads a person to wrongly interpret other people's
motives and acts. You may say, if you like, that
he believes such and such a thing because he wishes
to, or because of some firmly fixed belief through
which he interprets it. The difference between the
normal and abnormal person is that the former can,
if he desires and the truth is properly presented,
change his belief ; the abnormal person cannot.

It would be an extravagance to say that the Kai-
ser's delusion is anything more than a normal fixed
idea which he could change if he wished to. But
this fixed idea is so strong, so deeply rooted in his
personality, and so directly the expression of a
cherished and cultivated wish, conscious or subcon-
scious, that it dominates his interpretation of facts
which to an ordinary person flatly contradict it. It
leads him to entirely ignore both palpable facts,
such as the purchase with cold cash, by his ancestor,
of the throne, or more exactly, electorate of Bran-
denburg, and universally accepted understandings
of the relation of God to the worldly affairs of men
— so universally accepted that they have passed into
the common-sense of mankind. We may say, para-
phrasing the words of a subconscious personality

Tlie Psychology of the Kaiser 141

known as "Sally" in a case of multiple personality
describing the attitude of mind of one of her other
selves: "There are so many things he cannot or
will not see. He holds to certain beliefs and ideas
with unwearying patience. It makes no difference
that the facts are all against him. He still ignores
the facts, still idealizes himself and his preroga-
tives."

The Kaiser's fixed idea is, according to psycho-
logical laws, determined by wishes — his wish to be
sole and autocratic ruler of Prussia and the
Empire, his wish to be the sole arbiter and di-
rector of the imperial destinies, his wish, "con-
sidering himself the instrument of the Lord,
without heeding the views and opinions" and
will of his subjects to "go his way"; his wish to
decide everything, like a patriarch for the people,
and to treat them like children ; his wish to be looked
up to as the supreme power — all these desires de-
termine in him the belief that he is the "anointed of
the Lord," a ruler by Divine authority. For only
by such authority could he logically find justifica-
tion for the assimiption of such powers and the ful-
fillment of his desires. In other words, through the
acceptance of the Divine Right Delusion he finds
a means for the fulfillment of his wishes. And cu-
riously enough, but still according to psychological
laws, this fixed idea with its powerful instinct of
self-assertion has awakened in his Junker and mil-
itaristic supporters sentiments of self-abasement
through which they yield submissively to this as-

142 The Creed of Deutschtum

sumed prerogative of the Kaiser and adopt an atti-
tude of Divinity Worship. Thus we have a politico-
religious cult in which the Kaiser is the Godhead.
And thus we have wishes conscious and subcon-
scious, but working subconsciously, making a fool —
psychologically speaking — of the Kaiser.

The most curious part of this whole Divine Right
business is that in Germany, with all its "Kultur,"
there has been scarcely one single voice among all
the people of Germany publicly to deny this claim,
excepting the voice of the Social Democracy; or,
if there has, it has been like a voice crying in the
wilderness — or perhaps from behind prison bars,
where such rashness brought the prisoner, con-
demned under the feudal law of lese-majeste. We
shall presently see what the German democracy
thinks about it.

^THE GERMAN AUTOCRACY AND THE ARMY

The practical upshot of this whole German sys-
tem of government, in which imperial prerogatives
and an impotent opera bouffe Reichstag are essen-
tial ingredients, is that the Kaiser with his Chan-
cellor and the Ministers of the several departments
(Foreign Affairs, Navy, Post Office, etc.), a bu-
reaucracy responsible only to the Kaiser, constitute
an autocracy independent of Parliament and the
voters. Consequently the Government is intended

The Psychology of the Kaiser 143

to be and is for the State, by the State, not of the
people, by the people.

The Kaiser's point of view as to his own place
in the State is shown by some of his sayings: "There
is only one master in this country — I am he and
I will not tolerate another." "There is no law but
my law; there is no will but my will," he told his
soldiers, and, "The King's will is the highest law,"
he wrote in the Golden Book of Munich.

And so, as a German Professor, Ludwig Gur-
litt, has said:

He regards his people, the masses, as children not yet
of age, and thinks the Government competent to prescribe
the course of their social and cultural development — a
profound and fatal mistake ... a mediaeval idea !

Autocracy makes for efficiency, but it also makes
for the suppression of the aspirations of the people
and self-government. But if the Kaiser, the bu-
reaucracy, and an emasculated Parliament were the
whole system of goverimient, autocracy would be
incomplete. The system would crumble away as
by an earthquake when democracy became success-
ful at the polls.

The system, therefore, must be supported by
power of some kind. Without power behind the
throne, or behind any government, autocratic, mon-
archical, or republican, that goveiTiment would fall
at the first shock of internal conflict. In a real
republic that power is the will of the people — com-
monly called public opinion. But we have seen that
the German system does not rest upon public opin-

144 The Creed of Deutschtum

ion. Upon what, then? William II., indeed, as the
"instrument of the Lord," has flaunted his own
defiance of public sentiment.
Five years ago he said :

Considering myself as the instrument of the Lord, and
without heeding the views and opinions of the day, I go
my way.

Behind the German autocracy is the army, under
the absolute conti^ol of the Kaiser. Upon the army
the Kaiser depends for the security of his rule.
The army is the power behind the throne.

As one writer remarks:

"The army is the foundation of the social structure of
the empire."

The Kaiser, on one occasion, declared:

With grave anxiety I placed the crown upon my head.
Everywhere I met doubt, and the whole world misjudged
me. But one had confidence in me ; but one believed in
me — that was the army. And relying upon the army, and
trusting in God, I began my reign, knowing well that the
army is the main tower of strength for my country, the
main pillar supporting the Prussian throne, to which
God in His wisdom had called me.

He said in 1891 :

The soldier and the army, not parliamentary majorities
and decisions, have welded together the German Empire.
My confidence is in the army— as my grandfather said
at Coblenz : "These are the gentlemen on whom I can
rely."

And again, asserting his belief in military force
as the means upon which the empire must rely to

The Psychology of the Kaiser 145

accomplish its ends at home and abroad, he quoted
the saying of Frederick WilHam I.:

If one wishes to decide something in this world, it is not
the pen alone that will do it if unsupported by the power
of the sword.

In his first official act as Emperor (June 15,
1888), he declared:

The absolutely inviolable dependence upon the war lord
(Kriegsherr) is, in the army, the inheritance which
descends from father to son, from generation to gener-
ation. ... So we are bound together, I and the army.
Thus we are born for one another, and thus we will hold
together in an indissoluble bond, in peace or storm, as
God wills.

This close connection between the army and the
Prussian Kings, as Professor Gauss points out, is
a tradition which William II. has sedulously main-
tained, just as we have seen he has maintained the
traditions of a Divine right to rule.

THE kaiser's sentiments

With the meaning of all these prerogatives in
mind, let us look a bit more closely into the psychol-
ogy of the Kaiser. In doing so let us bear in mind
that in the doctrine of Divine right we see devel-
oped in the Kaiser a strong sentiment of the most
personal kind, of birthright, of self-interest. And,

146 The Creed of Deutschtum

besides this, in all the other prerogatives which the
Kaiser has so defiantly resolved to defend against
all encroachments, we also have sentiments of self-
interest — sentiments of possession, of rights per-
taining to self.

All these sentiments are bound up with a con-
sciousness of his own personality (a "self -regard-
ing" sentiment), with his ego. And there is a
great deal of ego, of consciousness of his ego, in his
personality. Perhaps his enemies would say, as was
said of the great orang-utan, Bimi, in Kipling's
tale— Bimi, who also wished to crush his enemies
in furious outbursts of jealous rage — "there is too
much ego in his cosmos."

Now, as a matter of psychology, "sentiments,"
as I have already said, are of tremendous impor-
tance as factors in personality and as forces which
determine attitudes of mind, reactions of the per-
sonality to the environment and conduct.

Upon the formation of "sentiments" the charac-
ter of a person and his social behavior fundamen-
tally depend. And by the formation of sentiments
in the course of the individual's mental development
the primitive innate instincts of human nature are
harnassed and brought under control and their im-
pulses given proper direction. Thus these primitive
impulses are repressed or cultivated according to
the ideals of society. Otherwise, driven by the im-
pulses of our innate instincts, we should all run
amuck through society.

We must understand, then, a little more pre-

The Psychology of the Kaiser 147

cisely what, psychologically and technically speak-
ing, a sentiment is. I am not using the word
in the popular sense. Without going into the psy-
chology deeply, we may say that a sentiment is an
idea of something, as its object, organized or asso-
ciated with one or more instinctive emotions which
give the idea impulsive force.

In the personality of every human being — and
the same is true of animals — there are a number
of emotional instincts. These instincts are char-
acterized by a particular emotion which each pos-
sesses, and miay be named indifferently, for our
present purposes, either after the emotion itself or
after the biological aim which the instinct serves.

Every person, for instance, possesses a pugnacity
instinct of which the emotion is anger. Other such
instincts are fear, parental feeling, disgust, curi-
osity, self-assertion, self-abasement, reproduction,
and so on. All such instincts have a biological func-
tion in that they serve either to protect, like anger
and fear, the individual (and the species) from
danger against its enemies and prevent its extinc-
tion, or, like the parental and reproductive instincts,
serve to perpetuate the species, or, like the curios-
ity instinct, to acquire knowledge and learn by ex-
perience, and so on. Emotion, as the very word
itself indicates, moves us — i. e., it is a force that
impels toward some end and the emotion of each
instinct carries it to fulfillment.

When an emotion — i. e., instinct — has been ex-
cited by some object, whether it be a material thing,

148 The Creed of Deutschtum

like a snake, or another person, or something mental
— an idea of a material object, or a thought as of a
possible danger to the individual, or of a political
principle — the emotion may become so associated
with and bound to the object that whenever the ob-
ject is presented in consciousness the emotion is
excited. This particularly happens when the emo-
tion has been frequently excited by the same ob-
ject.

Thus a person may acquire a fear of snakes, or
thunderstorms, or hatred of a person. Two or more
emotional instincts may be organized in this way
into a system about a given idea as their object.

Now, when an idea always excites one or more
emotions, so that the idea is always accompanied
by the same emotional reaction, the whole is called
a sentiment. Thus we have the sentiment of love
of a mother for her child, of hatred of a tyrant,
of disgust for a vicious person, of pride of self,
and so on.

Practically, psychological analysis shows that the
organization of a sentiment is more complicated
than such a simple arrangement would make it,
and that the sentiment is deeply and widely rooted
in a number of ramifying, previous mental experi-
ences and innate emotions. This is expressed by
popular language when we say a given sentiment
is deeply rooted in a person's personality. The emo-
tions serve to give their ideas great intensity and
driving force for action.

It is held by some psychologists that a sentiment

The Psychology of the Kaiser 149

always includes innately organized systems of sev-
eral emotions so that a different emotion is neces-
sarily excited according to the situation in which
the object presents itself. Thus a hated person
will awaken in us joy, or sorrow, or anger, or fear,
according to whether he suffers injury, or escapes
destruction, or prospers, or is likely to get the bet-
ter of us.

In accordance with this view a sentiment is an
organized system of emotions centred about an idea
of an object. The mechanism, as I have stated it,
however, is sufficiently accurate for our purpose.

With these general principles in mind, one has
only to read the Kaiser's speeches to recognize that
his ideas of himself and of his prerogatives, which
he jealously defends, are organized with instinctive
emotions of great intensity — emotions belonging to
greed of possession, and pride, and self-assertion
(or self-display ) , and pugnacity, and vengeful emo-
tion, and jealousy. These ideas are therefore sen-
timents deeply fixed and organized in his person-
ality, and given great driving force by their emo-
tions, which tend to carry them to activity and frui-
tion.

Hence it is that the Kaiser's sentiments of him-
self and his prerogatives exhibit great intensity of
feeling and determine his conduct to assert his rights
and to exercise and enjoy them by being his own
Chancellor and ruling the army and empire, and,
if need be, to defend them most vigorously.

150 The Creed of Deutschtum

THE kaiser's self-regarding SENTIMENT

But we must leave these traits of the Kaiser's
personality for the immediate issue of our study.
One sentiment, however, ought to be considered
more intimately if certain of his most notorious pe-
culiarities are to be understood. I refer to what
has been called the "self -regarding" sentiment.

Every person possesses such a sentiment, al-
though it varies according to the ingredients that
enter into it. Professor William McDougall, one
of the most eminent of contemporary psychologists,
has analyzed this sentiment, and attributes it to the
biological instincts of self-assertion and self-abase-
ment compounded in varying proportions with the
idea of self. (These instincts are common to an-
imals as well as men and have a biological end.)
We thus get different types of self.

When the first instinct of self-assertion — also
called self-display — with its emotion of positive
self -feeling is the chief instinct, then we have a type
in which pride is the main characteristic of the idea
of self. When the second instinct (with the emo-
tion of negative self- feeling) is happily blended in
the sentiment, we have a type of self-respect.

To illustrate the former type, Professor McDou-
gall (Social Psychology) draws the character of an
imaginary Prince in whom the first instinct is the

The Psychology of the Kaiser 151

dominating one. It is interesting to see how per-
fectly his picture represents the Kaiser:

Imagine the son of a powerful and foolish Prince to be
endowed with great capacities and to have in great
strength the instinct of self-display with its emotion of
positive self-feeling. Suppose that he is never checked,
or corrected, or criticised, but is allowed to lord it over
all his fellow-creatures without restraint. The self-
regarding sentiment of such a child would almost neces-
sarily take the form of an unshakable pride, a pride
constantly gratified by the attitudes of deference, grati-
tude, and admiration of his social environment ; the only
dispositions that would become organized in this senti-
ment of pride would be those of positive self-feeling or
elation and of anger (for his anger would be invariabl}^
excited when any one failed to assume toward him the
attitude of subjection or deference).

His self-consciousness might be intense and very prom-
inent, but it would remain poor in content; for he could
make little progress in self-knowledge ; he would have
little occasion to hear, or to be interested in, the judg-
ments of others upon himself ; and he would seldom be led
to reflect upon his own character and conduct. The
only influences that could moralize a man so endowed and
so brought up would be either religious teaching, which
might give him the sense of a power greater than himself
to whom he was accountable, or a very strong natural en-
dowment of the tender emotion and its altruistic impulse,
or a conjunction of these two influences.

A man in whom the self-regarding sentiment had
assumed this form would be incapable of being humbled —
his pride could only be mortified ; that is to say, any dis-
play of his own shortcomings or any demonstration of
the superiority of another to himself could cause a pain-
ful check to his positive self-feeling and a consequent
anger, but could give rise neither to shame nor to humilia-
tion, nor to any affective state, such as admiration, grati-
tude, or reverence, in which negative self-feeling plays

152 The Creed of Deutschtum

a part. And he would be indifferent to moral praise or
blame; for the disposition of negative self- feeling would
have no place in his self-regarding sentiment; and nega-
tive self-feeling, which renders us observant of the atti-
tude of others toward ourselves and receptive toward
their opinions, is one of the essential conditions of the
influence of praise and blame upon us.

The inordinate cultivation in the Kaiser of the
self -regarding sentiment with the unalloyed instinct
of self-display also explains, psychologically, the
manifestations of certain traits which have amazed
the world. I mean his colossal vanity as mani-
fested by his fondness for dressing himself up in
all sorts of uniforms and constantly changing his
costumes — on occasions as often as five or six times
in a single day, and even during the course of a
Court reception — his fondness for having himself
photographed or painted, or his portrait made as
busts, lithographs, medals, and bas-reliefs, always
posing in heroic attitudes for the purpose.

It is interesting to compare the snap-shots of the
Kaiser with the posed photographs (there are thou-
sands of photographs of him ) , and not only as him-
self, but in the heroic character of a Roman Em-
peror mounted on a charger, and again in imitation
of the Emperor Charlemagne.

It explains his self-assumption to be an artist —
a painter, a musician, a composer, an architect, an
art critic, a preacher, and Heaven knows what else.
It also gives a psychological explanation of his
inability to stand personal criticism, and for his
vain obtuseness in not being able to understand how

The Psychology of the Kaiser 153

any one should not look upon him excepting with
reverent awe. One of the authors of "The Kaiser"
cites the following two incidents.

One of his subjects had been sentenced to prison
for hinting something disrespectful about his sov-
ereign :

William was genuinely amazed that such an unnatural
crime could ever have been committed. He "read and
reread the papers in the case with the closest attention" ;
and finally said to the waiting official: "It would seem
that this man hitherto has not been a crimnal — son of
respectable parents, himself in a respectable walk of life,
with a good education. And yet- — how do you explain
this — this insult to the Anointed of the Lord? Strange!
Strange !"

On another occasion:

After reading a speech of the Socialist leader Bebel,
containing some animadversion upon himself, he turned
to the officer in attendance with clouded brow and flash-
ing eye, and remarked in a voice trembling with passion:
"And all this to me! To me! What is the country
coming to?"

This self -regarding sentiment is also at the bot-
tom of that .dominating trait — love of power —
which has led him to aspire to world power and to
believe that with his army and with a stronger navy,
toward the upbuilding of which he has directed un-
tiringly his energies, he could conquer the world. It
even led him to think of conquering the United
States, for when we were engaged in war with
Spain he declared, as I have authority for saying,
"If I had had a larger fleet I would have taken

154 The Creed of Deutschtum

Uncle Sam by the scruff of the neck."*

That this saying of the Kaiser's meant more than
mere momentary ebullition of petulant feeling or
a thoughtless boast becomes manifest when we bear
in mind that it was made towards the end of June,
1898, after the arrival of Vice- Admiral von Died-
rich and his fleet at Manila on June 12. It is sig-
nificant that von Diedrich, when asked by Dewey
why so large a German naval force — five ships, a
more powerful force than that of the American
fleet — was present, replied, "I am here by order
of the Kaiser, sir," and the same explanation has
been given since. We know now that there was
an attempt made to form a coalition of Continental
monarchies against the United States to intervene
in the war in favor of Spain, but that it was blocked
by England who, there is evidence to show, threat-

* In a letter to the author, July 7, 1898, Joseph Chamberlain, then
Colonial Secretary of Great Britain, wrote:

"Of course you will win, and will be able to dictate terms to Spain.
The Continental Powers will not interfere because England will not
join them. I am certain that if opinion here had been different to
what it is, j'^ou would have had to face a European coalition.

"A fortnight ago {do not quote me as the authority) the German
Emperor said to a friend of mine, 'If I had had a large fleet I
would have taken Uncle Sam b}^ the scruff of the neck' — and this
represents the view of the older monarchies who begin to desire a
Monroe Doctrine for Europe. But, in view of the attitude of this
country, they dare not move.

"You are therefore free to work out your destiny."

I have now been fully authorized to publish this letter. It was
printed in full in the New York Tribune of April 28, 1917. There is
much other corroborative evidence, which is undoubtedly accessible,
of this attempt to form a European coalition against the United
States and of its being blocked by England. (See letter of Mr. G.
Creighton Webb, in the New York Times, June, 2, 1915.)

The Psychology of the Kaiser 155

ened to place her navy on the side of this country.
Consequently Germany and the other Powers dared
not move. As it was we came to the brink of war
in July through the action of von Diedrich in inter-
fering, after the battle of Manila, May 1, with the
blockade by Dewey.*

The remark of the Kaiser that he "would have
taken Uncle Sam by the scruff of the neck" must
be taken in connection with all .the events of the
time and particularly with the attempt to form a
European coalition against the United States which
probably would have been successful had it not
been for the action of England.

And so this same self-regarding sentiment, dis-
torted and unbalanced, in co-operation with other
sentiments, led him in 1914 to have contempt for
the other Powers and to believe that he had a strong
enough ai-my to terrify Russia and her ally, France,
into submission, and so he gave Austria authority
to take Servia "by the scruff of the neck"; to feel,
in case the gleam of the "shining armour" and the
clang of the rattling sabre did not suffice, that he
had a strong enough army to take Russia "by the

* It has come to light that events went so far that a German ship,
it has been reported, cleared for action and Dewey, in the famous
choleric interview (July 10) with the German Admiral's representa-
tive, Flag-Lieutenant v. Hintzer, threatened war if Germany wanted
it. This part of the interview was thus reported to Mr. John Barrett
by "one of the officers of the Olympia who heard the conversation":
"If the German Government" (said Dewey) "has decided to make
war on the United States, or has any intention of making war, and
has so informed your Admiral, it is his duty to let me know. . . .
But whether he intends to fight or not I am ready." {Admiral George
Dewey, by John Barrett: 1899: p. 115.)

156 The Creed of Deutschtum

scruff of the neck," and so he declared war against
that country; to feel that he had a strong enough
army to take France "by the scruff of the neck,"
and so he declared war against France; to feel
that he had a strong enough army to take Belgium
"by the scruff of the neck," and so he invaded that
country with his army; and it led him more than
twenty years ago to believe that some day he would
have a strong enough navy to take England "by
the scruff of the neck," and so he builded and build-
ed his navy and drank to "Der Tag."

Of course, the Kaiser's hypertrophied and one-
sided self -regarding sentiment was not the sole psy-
chological factor in determining his attiude of mind
towards the United States and the other Powers.
There were many factors, but it was one; and it
accounts for his notorious contempt for other na-
tions and at that time, particularly, for the United
States. There were also sentiments of World-
power and Empire, of German Kultur and War-
Worship; a desire to have a "place in the sun," to
possess colonies and, in particular, the Philippines
and those of England and France; and to extend
the German Empire to the ^gean Sea on the south
and the North Sea on the north.

The self-regarding sentiment, obviously, has
played also a large part in the Divine Right De-
lusion, in co-operation with the wishes we have con-
sidered, forming a large ego-centric complex.

Such, and other manifestations of the Kaiser's
self -regarding sentiment, due to the impulsive force

The Psychology of the Kaiser 157

of its highly developed instinct of self -display (self-
assertion), would make this element of his person-
ality an interesting psychological study by itself.
I merely wish now to point out that it is the extreme
type of this sentiment that is responsible for many
of his extravagances of speech and action, and that
it plays a part, as we shall see, in his reactions to
democracy.

VII

AIMS OF THE GERMAN DEMOCRACY

Now let us return to the Kaiser's hatred of
democracy. This also is a sentiment organized with
several emotional instincts, etc., which we need not
bother about here. That he has a hatred of de-
mocracy is obvious.

But why?

To know that he has a hatred is not enough. We
want it explained, to know why. It is not a suf-
ficient explanation to say that he disbelieves in the
principles of democracy. That would not be suffi-
cient to account for the development of the senti-
ment of hatred and for the reaction of anger which
democracy excites. What created the hatred? For
so much emotion there must be a deeper-lying cause
— some hidden sentiment which, we may suspect,
conflicts with the sentiments of his cherished pre-
rogatives and his self-regarding sentiment.

We want to know the Why. With this object

158 The Creed of Deutschtum

let us consider the object of the hatred — the aims
of the party of democracy, one of the great pohti-
cal forces in Prussia and the empire; one with
which, as we have seen, the Emperor has been pas-
sionately in conflict since his accession to the throne.
We cannot understand the psychological reaction
of the Emperor without understanding the aims and
the potential power of this political force. For this
purpose I shall have to ask the reader to bear for
a moment with a slight digression, keeping in mmd
what has been said about the Kaiser's sentiments
until we return to our main theme.

What does the Social Democratic Party stand
for and in what respect are its aims antagonistic
to the Emperor's prerogatives and the German sys-
tem of government ? The party is widely regarded
in the United States, I am constrained to believe,
as the party of socialism. But this idea needs con-
siderable modification. Indeed, so much so that
the party would, if its aims were understood, re-
ceive the moral support of Americans.

Socialism has an ominous sound to American
ears. The word has a stigma for many and is cal-
culated to repel. At one time in its early history
Marxian Socialism, formulated by Marx himself
as "the social ownership of the means of production
and distribution," was the dominating aim of the
German Socialist Party.

But times have changed. The aims of the party
have undergone various metamorphoses as the re-
sult of conflicts of factions within, fusions and po-

The PsycJiology of the Kaiser 159

litical evolution. Since the Kaiser came to the
throne in 1888 a revolution has taken place in the
aims, methods, tactics, and programs of the party.
In accordance with this change, in 1890, the name
was changed to the Social Democratic Party. So-
cialism has been relegated to the background and
democracy has become the paramount aim and is-
sue.

In other words, the principles of the socialist,
Marx, have given place to those of the brilliant
democratic leader, Lassalle. Both men are dead,
but democracy survives. As one authority (S. P.
Orth) puts it, "Marx is a tradition, democracy is
an issue."

To-day one hears very little of Marx and a great
deal of "legislation" based on democratic princi-
ples:

The last election (1912), with its brilliant victory for
Social Democracy, was not won on the general issues of
the Erfurter program, but on the particular issue of
the arrogance of the bureaucracy and ballot reform.

Marxian propagandism has been sloughed off.
But even if the Democratic Party still stood for
socialism as its paramount aim this fact would not
necessarily make it antagonistic to the Emperor's
prerogatives or the German system of government.
The State might become engaged in all sorts of
individual enterprises without the fundamental
structure of Government becoming altered. As a
matter of fact, Germany is to-day the most so-
cialized nation in the world.

160 The Creed of DeutscJitiim

We will not stop to inquire into the origin of this
State Socialism. It does not matter for our pur-
poses that these State socialistic measures were of-
fered as a "bribe," to use Bismarck's term, to the
Social Democrats to cease agitation against the gov-
ernment, and that the Emperor long ago dropped
this policy when he found that the Social Demo-
crats would not be bribed. They would have none
of these measures. They wanted political rights,
political freedom of thought and speech, and the
right to manage their own government just as we
do ours in the United States.

The German State owns railroad, canal and river
transportation, telegraph and telephone systems,
harbors and a parcel post. It conducts banks, in-
surance, savings banks, and pawnshops. It admin-
isters sick and accident insurance and old-age pen-
sions. The municipalities own public utilities of
all kinds, theatres, markets, and warehouses.

The State, or municipality, obviously might go
further and administer iron, coal, and manufactur-
ing enterprises; it might undertake all sorts of so-
cialistic functions without altering one whit the pre-
rogatives of the Crown, or of Parliament, or of the
relations of the Government to the people. Gov-
ernmental autocracy would still exist and very
likely would administer these industrial enterprises
with the same satisfying efficiency with which it ad-
ministers everything else it has taken hold of.

The intense anger and hatred with which the Em-
peror reacts to the Social Democrats cannot, there-

The Psychology of the Kaiser 161

fore, be explained by the principles of socialism
per se, although he may disbelieve in extreme Marx-
ian socialism. Even if these were still the aim of
the party, there must be some other explanation
that a Social Democrat should be stigmatized as an
enemy of the empire, of religion and God, to be
shot down by the army if his party became too
strong.

Let us examine then the demands as given in the
latest program (1912) of the Social Democrats and
some of the legislation for which they have fought.
The demands are given in fourteen articles.

Number one demands equal opportunities for all,
special privileges to none — good American doc-
trine. Number two relates to reform of the ballot
laws and has been the main immediate issue. "Uni-
versal, direct, equal, secret ballot" is demanded —
also American doctrine. Owing to the present in-
equality of the ballot the Democrats have been bad-
ly handicapped in that they cannot elect their pro-
portionate number of representatives.

Number three relates to the existing system of
government. A true Parliamentary Government
is demanded, and a Ministry, like that of England,
responsible to Parliament, instead of the present
autocratic system by which the Ministry is respon-
sible only to the Emperor. Also, it is demanded
that "the power to declare war or mmntain peace"
he given to the lower house (Reichstag). Consent
of the Reichstag to all State appropriations (as
with the House of Commons and the American

162 The Creed of Beutschtum

Congress).

Numbers four and five relate respectively to the
organization of the army and reform of adminis-
trative justice, abolishing class privilege at law, etc.
Number six demands the "right to combine, meet,
and organize." Number seven relates to the estab-
lishment of a national Department of Labor, fac-
tory inspection, and a legalized universal eight-
hour day, etc. Number eight relates to reform of
the industrial insurance laws, and lowering the age
of old-age pensions from 70 to Q5, etc.

Number nine: complete religious freedom. Sep-
aration of Church and State. No support of any
kind for religious purposes from public funds —
good American doctrine again. Number ten de-
mands universal free schools. Number eleven re-
lates to reform of taxation demanding abolition of
indirect taxes and taxes on necessities of life and
reduction of tariif on those schedules which encour-
age trusts.

Number twelve supports "measures that tend to
develop commerce and trade." Number thirteen:
"A graduated income, property and inheritance
tax" in order to dampen "the ardor of the rich for
a constantly increasing army and navy." Number
fourteen: "Internal improvements and coloniza-
tion"; but the "cessation of foreign colonization
now done for the purpose of exploiting foreign peo-
ples for the sake of gain."

The first thing that will strike the reader is the
absence of anything essentially socialistic in the

The Psijcliology of the Kaiser 163

principles formulated in this program. They are
rather what we in this country would call "Repub-
lican," "Progressive," and "Democratic." They
are not nearly as socialistic as many of the functions
now undertaken by the German State. With the
exception of those articles that relate exclusively to
German conditions (such as numbers four and
eight) and the abolition of indirect taxation, they
express good American doctrine and are, for the
most part, axiomatic in this country.

No American and no Englishman would see any-
thing in them to get excited about, although he
might hold a different opinion about the expedi-
ency of one or the other demand. Undoubtedly the
spirit of German democracy goes further than the
program, especially in particular parts of Ger-
many ; nevertheless this program formulates the de-
mands of the national party.

Between the American Republic and German
democracy there is, or should be, a bond of common
sympathy, the bond of common political ideals and
common purpose — the love of political and relig-
ious liberty, freedom of thought, freedom of speech,
and freedom of the press without fear of imprison-
ment or punishment under "lese-majeste" or any
power of the State; the emancipation of mankind
from the tyranny of autocracy; the "right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" according
to the dictates of the individual conscience ; the rule
of the people and not of an autocracy, the subor-
dination of the State to the will of the people —

164 The Creed of Deutschtum

and to this end government based not upon an
army, but upon public opinion as expressed by the
votes of the people.

When these ideals and purposes of the German
democracy are realized in the United States, Amer-
ican public opinion will have the strongest ties of
sympathy with the great masses of Germany, strug-
gling for these ends against an intrenched "State."

Between German democracy and American pub-
lic sentiment there can be no conflict. It is only
with the autocratic classes that there can be an-
tagonism, but the autocratic classes mean the State
as an artificially created entity isolated from and
distinct from the masses of the people.

Why, then, does the Emperor almost alone, even
among Germans, react to the ideals of democracy
with such passion, such anger, and such hatred ? On
psychological grounds we can anticipate that such
emotion must be for personal reasons and because
they strike some intense emotional sentiment.

We find the key to the puzzle when we come to
examine Articles 3 and 4. Number three has been
the paramount issue of the democracy — it is its
foundation stone. Number two, the reform of the
ballot, while the main political issue of the day, is
only a means to this end.

The fundamental issue is (1) a true Parliamen-
tary Government, with parliamentary power in con-
formity with modern democratic ideas, such as ob-
tains in England; and (2) the abolition of a Chan-
cellor and Ministry appointed by the Kaiser and

The Psychology of the Kaiser 165

responsible only to the Kaiser and the substitution
of a Government responsible to Parliament. Thus
the Government and the army would be responsible
to the people and rest upon public opinion.

This democratic principle seems to our ideas not
only harmless enough, but a matter of course and
only the expression of the age we live in. But to
the Kaiser it means a personal cataclysm. It means
the abolition of the greatest of the Kaiser's pre-
rogatives; it means the denial of the Divine Right
of Kings; it means the downfall of the House of
Hohenzollern, in that it means the reduction of
the prerogatives of the house to reigning without
governing.

He could be no longer his own Chancellor, as
he is recognized generally to be to-day in fact. His
wings would be clipped. He would be shorn of
autocratic power. He could no longer dictate pol-
icies of government. The will of the people would
rule. What would be the use of a ''divine right"
to sit as a social ornament upon a throne and watch
the people rule?

Furthermore, his "self-regarding sentiment,"
characterized by the instinct of self-assertion and
the emotion of pride, would receive an unbearable
rebuff. He would no longer be the central figure
in Europe, overlording all other rulers by his per-
sonality, his autocratic power, and his prerogatives.
The conflict between the Kaiser and the democracy
thus becomes a personal conflict on his part.

166 The Creed of Deutschtum

VIII

THE REAL CAUSE OF THE KAISER's ANTIPATHY

Gathering together the facts which we have col-
lated, we have found in the Kaiser intensely strong
sentiments of his prerogatives, an almost abnormal
self -regarding sentiment, and a powerful, steadily
growing political party acting in antagonism to
those sentiments and threatening in case of success
to rob him of his prerogatives.

Now, with these facts in mind, let us analyze the
antecedent contents of the Kaiser's mind a little
more intimately. If he has been a thinking being
at all, we know, in view of the political and his-
torical facts we have studied — any assertion to the
contrary would meet with incredulous skepticism —
there have been thoughts, however fleeting, of what
would happen to himself and his house if the demo-
cratic reforms should prevail; thoughts of being
robbed of his prerogatives, robbed of his power to
rule the Kingdom of Prussia, to rule the Imperial
Bundesrat by his power as King of Prussia, to rule
the Reichstag through the Bundesrat; thoughts of
being robbed of the prerogatives to be his own
Chancellor, to appoint his own Ministry, to control
the army, to be independent of Parliament and pub-
lic opinion and the public will — in short, robbed of
being an autocratic ruler of the Kingdom of Prus-
sia and the German Empire by Divine Right.

The Psijchologii of the Kaiser 167

And there has been a full realization of the in-
creasing power of democracy, steadily growing in
numbers, and rising, swelling, year by year, like a
great irresistible tidal wave, threatening sooner or
later to carry all before it and overwhelm the sys-
tem of autocracy. And against this growing ava-
lanche of ballots of the democracy he sees no de-
fense for himself save the army, and so he calls
upon his soldiers to be prepared to "shoot down
your own relatives, brothers, and even parents in
the streets," when he shall give the word of com-
mand.

Such thoughts and such realizations of future
danger could not but excite the biological defensive
instinct of fear. And this instinct, being associated
with its object, the idea of democracy, forms a sen-
timent, the fear of democracy. This sentiment is
further associated with or ciystallized about other
egoistic sentiments of self and his House and his
prerogatives. Hence it may be described as a fear
of democracy because of the danger to himself and
his House of Hohenzollern, a fear of being deprived
by the hands of the democracy of his prerogative to
be an autocrat. It is a fear of democracy, not for
Germany but for himself. He fears for his own
life, so to speak, for, if you rob him of his preroga-
tives, do you not take away that which to him is
his life?

This does not mean that he is aware of this very
personal egoistic or egocentric fear-sentiment. He
undoubtedly would not admit it to others, nor is it

168 The Creed of Deutschtum

likely that he could, even if he would, admit it to
himself, because it has not been squarely faced, but
has been thrust aside, repressed bj^ the pride of his
self -regarding sentiment and not allowed to come
to the full light of consciousness. Though not rec-
ognized by himself, it is there all the same, repressed
into the subconscious, or, if you prefer, in the back-
ground of the mind (which, after all, is a part
of the subconscious ) .

Repressed into the subconscious, it is there neces-
sarily intimately systematized with, and has deep
roots in, the many associated antecedent thoughts
that, as we have seen, gave rise to it. So long as
these so-called psycho-genetic thoughts are there
unmodified — conserved also, like a phonographic
record, in the subconscious — ^he could not get rid
of his fixed fear of the democracy if he would.

In this light his famous declaration of his pre-
rogative, "I am the Supreme War Lord," receives
deeper meaning when at the same time we remem-
ber he is the head of that autocracy that wields the
power. We can see into the background of his
mind. He sees the danger, we see the fear. We
see, too, in the background of his mind a realiza-
tion of a growing democracy, and we find there
upon what methods he relies if the German democ-
racy should win at the polls and change the Con-
stitution. To oppose the will of the people he has
the army. And we see into his inner consciousness
when he prepared (as already quoted) the minds
of his young soldiers for "the day."

The Psychology of the Kaiser 1()9

THE KAISER^S ANTIPATHY AN OBSESSION AND A DE-
FENSE REACTION

Now let US go one step further. Although this
egocentric sentiment of fear for himself and his
dynasty is repressed into the subconscious, it is not
for that reason inert and incapable of affecting his
conscious processes. On the contrary, as we are
forced to believe from the result of psychological
investigations into such conditions of personality, it
determines many of his conscious processes of
thought, of his political principles and his activities
against his most dangerous political enemy.

In the first place, it induces a defense reaction
of an intensely emotional character which aims to
direct his activities in a direction that will protect
him against the dangers of democracy. This de-
fense reaction is anger and the sentiment of hatred.

It should be explained that psychological analy-
sis of the emotions goes to show that the sentiment
of hatred is made up of several emotions associated
with its object, of at least fear and anger and venge-
ful emotions,' which last also includes anger besides
that most conspicuous trait of the Kaiser — the self-
regarding sentiment.

The way the defense reaction comes into play is
this: The instinctive emotions and their sentiments
are awakened and recur from time to time when-

170 The Creed of Deutschtum

ever the subconscious egoistic sentiment or any of
its associated psychogenetic thoughts — those of his
possible fall from power — is touched. The senti-
ments of fear he will not admit to himself, and
they are repressed as such; but the fear-emotion
appears in consciousness disguised as hatred, of
which it is a component. Anger against and hatred
of democracy he is prepared to admit. They are
fully faced and rise into the full light of conscious-
ness, although their real underlying cause is hid-
den.

Such an intensely fixed emotional idea (hatred),
recurring whenever its object is presented to con-
sciousness, is, in principle, an obsession, although
it may not be so beyond control as to be pathologi-
cal. But, as in the Kaiser's case, it may be only
the apparent obsession, i. e., a defense reaction to
the real obsession hidden in the subconscious. The
Kaiser's real obsession is a subconscious phobia^ a
fear of democracy for himself and his House.

It is interesting to notice in this connection how
the national hatred of one nation for another is rec-
ognized by popular language as a phobia or fear.
We speak of an Anglo-phobia, of a Russo-phobia,
to describe the hatred of, let us say, Germany for
England and Russia. Though the nation would
not admit being afraid, nevertheless, by the very
term employed, it is popularly recognized that the
hatred is really though unconsciously the expression
of a fear.

In the case of the Kaiser's phobia of democracy,

The Psijchologii of the Kaiser 171

the impulsive forces of the biological instincts of
pugnacity (anger), fear, self-assertion, etc., pro-
vide the energy of the fighting spirit and carry to
fruition his political ideas aimed at repressing the
Social Democrats. This is exemplified by the
Kaiser's exhortations, threats, and epithets hurled
in his speeches at these alone of his political ene-
mies, and by the laws enacted and the use of the
lese-majeste to suppress them. By suppressing the
Social Democracy he is defended from his peril.
Hence, as I have said, anger and hatred is a defense
reaction.

There are other ways in which the Kaiser's sub-
conscious phobia unconsciously determines his men-
tal behavior — by this I mean his modes or reason-
ing, his political principles and activities. As is well
recognized not only by psychologists but by popu-
lar notions, such a repressed, unadmitted sentiment
becomes a motivating force, a subconscious motive
that directs our conscious reasonings.

Thus the Kaiser rationalizes, as psychologists say,
his political objections to democracy — that is, un-
willing to admit his real objections, he finds and
formulates logical reasons why democracy is wrong
and why his own opinions are right, really believing
in them, perhaps, as God-given. Saving the intro-
duction of the Deity, this is nothing more than what
every one does who is unconsciously influenced by
subconscious motives of which he is unaware.

When we say that a person is unconsciously in-
fluenced by this or that, unconsciously governed

172 The Creed of Deutschtum

by a prejudice or sentiment like jealousy or fear or
ambition or what not, we mean that he is governed
by a motive which is subconscious, which he will
not admit to himself, and of which he is therefore
unaware. It determines his thoughts just as the
hidden works of a clock determine the movements
of the hands and chimes.

THE MORAL

What is the moral of all this? Surely the insight
into the Kaiser's mind whioh a study of his senti-
ments and his phobia has given us reveals some-
thing more important than the mere personality of
an exalted personage — exalted in the eyes of the
world. It gives us an insight into the political forces
which are wrestling within the German Empire for
those ideals for which humanity has been striving
through all the ages. It reveals the forces which
for years have been striving with might and main
to suppress these ideals. And it reveals the forces
upon which the world must depend to overthrow
Germanism.

The Kaiser and his House of HohenzoUern and
all that they stand for have become Civilization's
World-Problem.

If the Powers of Europe want lasting peace
through the overthrow of autocracy and militarism,
i. e., Germanism, the obsession of the Kaiser points
the way — look to the democracy of Germany !

THE AMERICAN VERSUS THE GER-
MAN VIEWPOINT

THE AMERICAN VERSUS THE GER-
MAN VIEWPOINT*

FRENCH AND GERMAN LESSONS AT THE FRONT

SINCE the war began numerous articles by
organized German propagandists have ap-
peared scattered through the press and mag-
azines of this country, and in pamphlets.

These articles have given us the German view-
point of government, of the causes of and respon-
sibility for the war, of the manner in which war
should be carried on, of German ideals and other
matters.

With the exception possibly of Dr. Dernburg,
Dr. von Mach stands out as the most prolific writer
among these propagandists. Furthermore, a few
days ago he presided in Washington at the propa-
gandist meeting of "German Americans," which
passed resolutions demanding unneutral action by
our government.

What, then, is the German viewpoint?

I turn to Dr. von Mach for the above reasons
and because he has instructed us in a long series
of articles specifically entitled the ''German View-
point." These cover about every aspect of German

* Printed in the Boston Sunday Post, February 7 and 14, 1915.

175

176 The Creed of Deutschtum

thought and activity. With only one of these view-
points am I interested here, that of the German
army's method of carrying on war. I will cite only
so much as will enable one who has not read the
original article to understand this viewpoint.

Dr. von Mach begins by quoting the following
words of the great von Moltke, written in 1880:

"Nobody, I think, can deny that the general soft-
ening of men's manners has been followed by a more
humane way of waging war. The introduction in
our generation of universal service in the army has
marked a long step in the direction of the desired
aim, for it has brought also the educated classes into
the army."

"The truth of this statement," Dr. von Mach
contends, "is fully borne out by the reports which
have reached Germany from the front."

He then goes on to illustrate for our edification
this "viewpoint" by a series of pictures of German
army life constructed to show "the humaiie way of
waging war" under the influence of the educated
classes in the army.

These pictures are drawn from an account writ-
ten by Professor von Hartmann, now serving as
a lieutenant in the army. The first picture is of an
incident which, we were told, "may well form the
basis on which to construct a picture of the German
army in the field to-day." It is called a "French
Lesson at the Front. Place — A Stubble Field in
Belgium. Time — Autumn, 1914."

American Versus German Viewpoint 177

Songs the Germans Sing

The soldiers, halted after a forced march, "are
lounging in the field, talking and laughing" in an-
imated groups. Breakfast finished, they "are in
excellent humor." Some splendid fellows from the
country have lighted their pipes and we hear them
"singing the beautiful home and soldier songs"
which we are told (though not in italics) "often
soften for the time being even the hardest hearts of
warriors"

One sample of these beautiful, softening songs,
expressive, we may suppose, of German sympathy
for the enemy, is this :

"France, poor France, how will you fare
When our German militaire
Visits you? Colors: Black and white and red.
Poor little France, it is too bad!"

Sympathetic songs like these are heard all over
the field.

Then follows the French lesson. Here we see
the German soldier passing his leisure, not in the
rough, uncouth pastimes proverbial of soldiers of
other lands, but in the higher intellectual pastime
of acquiring culture.

On an order from the commanding officer "at-
tention" is called, and the whole company is gath-
ered about the professor-lieutenant who proceeds to
give a lesson in French to men eager for "kultur"
that will be of use when in a few weeks they will be
in Paris. Then the army takes up its march again.

178 The Creed of Deutschtum

Then we have another picture — that of the
marching soldiers, with softened hearts, singing a
touching song of comradeship. This song I shall
refer to later. Once more the picture changes.

"The song died away, the thunder of the cannon
grew louder;" the soldiers are going into battle.
Now we have a picture constructed to show us
the religious culture, the deep, reverent spirituality
of the soldiers: their "grand conception of God and
man;" they sing Koerner's "Prayer During Bat-
tle," beginning "Father, I call to Thee." The very
air seemed purified.

"Whatever selfish train of thought the individual
soldier or ofiicer had been following fell into insig-
nificance before the grand conception of God and
man."

An American Viewpoint

Thus we see in a succession of emotional pictures
how von Moltke's dream — if I may call it a dream
— has come true.

These are delightful idyls, charming pictures of
a Christian army, of an "army of the Lord," of
the softening of men's manners, and of the humane
German way of waging war. It is the German
viewpoint. But there is an American viewpoint;
let us contrast them.

Dr. von Mach has given his pictures as drawn
by an eye witness. Professor Hartmann, a German.
Let me, too, draw some pictures, and let me, too,
take my pictures from an eye witness in Belgium ;

American Versus German Viewpoint 179

but he shall be a neutral witness, an American, Mr.
E. Alexander Powell, who had unusual opportuni-
ties to observe what he describes in his book, re-
cently published, "Fighting in Flanders." He was
one of the few correspondents on the firing line.f

If any one has not read that book let him do so
at once if he wants to realize the manner of the
German invasion and of the heroic defense of their
country by the Belgians. He lets you understand,
too, how war is actually fought.

I cite this account because I wish to disregard all
ex parte testimony. All the Belgian accounts are
those of interested witnesses. We shall see the war
as waged in Belgium not from the Belgian or the
German viewpoint, but from the American view-
point.

Dr. von Mach's first picture is entitled:

"A French Lesson at the Front."
Let me call mine:
"A German Lesson at the Front."
It is a triptych in three scenes:

t At the time this article \vas written, February 1915, we did not
have the report of Lord Bryce's Commission and the mass of inde-
pendent testimony to German atrocities later given to the world on
the evidence of eye-witnesses. The official Belgian statements of the
time were ex parte but they have been fully corroborated. I there-
fore required a neutral American witness. Mr. Powell's testimony
has since been supported bj' many witnesses, amongst them Mr. Hugh
Gibson, whose evidence is appended as footnotes to the text further on.

180 The Creed of Deutschtum

SCENE I

PLACE AERSCHOT TIME AUGUST, 1914

{To understand the picture we must remember that orders had
been deliberately given to burn and pillage Aerschot by the Germ,am
com,mander after the German troops had entered the town. This, the
commander himself told Mr. Powell, was in retaliation for the shoot-
ing of the chief of staff by a boy, 15 years of age, the son of the
burgom,aster. "What followed," Mr. Poioell was given to understand
— the execution of the burgomaster, his son and several score of the
leading townsmen, the giving over of the xoomen to a lust-mad
soldiery, the sacking of the houses, and the final burning of the town
— "was the punishm,ent which would always be meted out to towns
whose inhabitants attacked Qerm,an soldiers.")

My picture is of what Mr. Powell saw:

In many parts of the world I have seen many terrible
and revolting things, but nothing so ghastly, so horrify-
ing as Aerschot. Quite two-thirds of the houses had been
burned and showed unmistakable signs of having been
sacked by a maddened soldiery before they were burned.

Everywhere were the ghastly evidences. Doors had
been smashed in with rifle-butts and boot heels ; windows
had been broken ; pictures had been torn from the walls ;
mattresses had been ripped open with bayonets in search
of valuables ; drawers had been emptied upon the floors ;
the outer walls of the houses were spattered with blood and
pock-marked with bullets ; the sidewalks were slippery
with broken bottles ; the streets were strewn with women's
clothing.

It needed no one to tell us the details of that orgy of
blood and lust. The story was so plainly written that
any one could read it.

For a mile we drove the car slowly between the
blackened walls of fire-gutted buildings. This was no
accidental conflagration, mind you, for scattered here
and there were houses which stood undamaged, and in
every such case there were scrawled with chalk upon the
doors, 'Good People. Do not burn. Do not plunder,'

American Versus German Viewpoint 181

The Germans went about the work of house-burning
as systematically as they did everything else. They had
various devices for starting conflagrations — all of them
effective.

Despite the scowls of the soldiers, I attempted to talk
with some of the women huddled in front of a bakery
waiting for a distribution of bread, but the poor crea-
tures were too terror-stricken to do more than stare at
us with wide, beseeching eyes. Those eyes will always
haunt me.

I wonder if they do not sometimes haunt the Germans.
But a little episode that occurred as we were leaving the
city did more than anything else to bring home the
horror of it all. We passed a little girl of 9 or 10 and
I stopped the car to ask the way. Instantly she held
both hands above her head and began to scream for
mercy. When we had given her some chocolate and
money and had assured her that we were not Germans,
but Americans and friends, she ran like a frightened deer.
That little child, with her fright-wide eyes and her hands
raised in supplication, was in herself a terrible indictment
of the Germans.

Scores Were Shot Down

Do you like the picture. Dr. von Mach? Quite
a picture, isn't it? Let us complete it in order
that we may study all the details in justice to Ger-
man art.

Piecing together the stories told by those who did sur-
vive that night of horror, we know that scores of towns-
people were shot down in cold blood, and that, when the
firing squads could not do the work of slaughter fast
enough, the victims were lined up and a machine gun was
turned upon them.

We know that young girls were dragged from their
homes and stripped naked and violated by soldiers —

182 The Creed of DeutscJitum

many soldiers — in the public square in the presence of
officers.

We know that both men and women were unspeakably
mutilated, that children were bayoneted, that dwellings
were ransacked and looted, and that finally, as though to
destroy the evidences of their horrid work, soldiers went
from house to house with torches, methodically setting
fire to them.

Is this the "humane way of waging war" which
the great Moltke thought had followed "the general
softening of men's manners," and the bringing of
"the educated classes into the army" through uni-
versal service? Wouldn't he be proud of German
"kultur" if he were alive to-day?

Perhaps you think I ought to give the reason
why the 15 -year-old son of the burgomaster shot
the German officer. Well, I will.

Shot to Defend Sister

The Germans claimed it was, or looked like, a
prearranged plan on the part of the townspeople,
who, it is asserted, opened fire upon the troops.
The Belgians give another reason for the boy's ac-
tion. It was in defense of his sister's honor. You
can read the detailed story if you wish to know
it, in Mr. Powell's book.

I do not know if that story is true; Mr. Powell
does not know. But there must have been some rea-
son, or perhaps the boy was a fanatic, or half-witted.
Surely no sane man, and surely no man holding
the responsible position of burgomaster, would give
a dinner party to German officers and arrange to

American Versus German Viewpoint 183

have his own son shoot one of them, knowing that
there was no escape from the consequences of such
an act committed in his own home.

But accept either story you hke, what do you
think of a commanding officer, of the mode of con-
ducting war that executes several score of the lead-
ing townsmen, that shoots down women and chil-
dren, that gives over the women to the soldiery, that
orders the sacking of the houses and, finally, the
burning down of the town, house by house, be-
cause a boy shot an officer?

Is this the German idea of a "humane way of
waging war"?

If you think this mode quite justified, let me tell
you how it impressed an American, one, remember,
accustomed to the sights of war in many lands:

It was with a feeling of repulsion amounting almost to
nausea that we left what had once been Aerschot be-
hind us.

But the Belgians nevertheless learned their Ger-
man lesson at the front.

Here is the second panel of the triptych. Please
look at it. It represents a second "German lesson
at the front":

SCENE II
PLACE LOUVAIN TIME SAME

The Germans had entered the city. The inhab-
itants had evacuated it before their arrival. Yet,
in spite of that fact, the Germans destroyed it.

184 The Creed of Deutschtum

They used a motor car, equipped with a large tank
for petrol, a pump, a hose and a spraying nozzle. The
car was run slowly through the streets, one soldier work-
ing the pump and another spraying the fronts of the
houses. Then they set fire to them. Oh, 3'^es, they were
very methodical about it, those Germans.*

* Mr. Hugh Gibson, Secretary of the American Legation in Brus-
sels, has recently published (Nov. 1917) his absorbingly interesting
"private journal" giving his observations from day to day during
those savage times from the invasion of. Belgium to the execution of
Miss Cavelle (Aug. 1915). He was able to get into Louvain during
the shooting-up and burning of the city. I am now able to give
further "pictures" of Louvain and evidence of German methods from
this neutral diary of an eye-witness. (I quote by permission.)

"We ... set off on foot down the Rue de la Station, . . . The
houses on both sides were either partially destroyed or smouldering.
Soldiers were systematically removing what was to be found in the
way of valuables, food, and wine, and then setting fire to the
furniture and hangings. It was all most businesslike. The houses
are substantial stone buildings, and fire will not spread from one
to another. Therefore the procedure was to batter down the door
of each house, clean out what was to be saved, then pile furniture
and hangings in the middle of the room, set them afire, and move
on to the next house.

"It was pretty hot, but we made our way down the street, show-
ing our passes every hundred feet or so to soldiers installed in com-
fortable armchairs, which they had dragged into the gutter from
looted houses, till we came to a little crossing about half way to
the Hotel de Ville. Here we were stopped by a small detachment
of soldiers, who told us that we could go no farther; that they
were clearing civilians out of some houses a little farther down
the street, and that there was likely to be firing at any time.

"The officer in command spoke to us civilly and told us to stick
close to him so that we could know just what we ought to do at any
time. He was in charge of the destruction of this part of the town
and had things moving along smartly. His men were firing some
houses near by and he stood outside smoking a rank cigar and
looking on gloomily. ...

"Machine guns were at work near by, and occasionally there was
a loud explosion when the destructive work was helped with dyna-
mite.

"A number of the men about us were drunk and evidently had
been in that state for some time. Our ofBcer complained that they

Avierican Versus German Viewpoint 185

Wlmt was the excuse for all this? I wonder.
That is not as pretty a picture as the one you

had had very httle to eat for several days, but added glumly that
there was plenty to drink. . . .

"He (the officer) was rabid against the Belgians and had an
endless series of stories of atrocities they had committed — though he
admitted that he had none of them at first hand. He took it as
gospel, however, that they had fired upon the German troops in
Louvain and laid themselves open to reprisals. To his thinking
there is nothing bad enough for them, and his chief satisfaction
seemed to consist in repeating to us over and over that he was
going the limit. Orders had been issued to raze the town — 'till not
one stone was left on another,' as he said.

"Just to see what would happen I inquired about the provision of
The Hague Conventions, prescribing that no collective penalty can
be imposed for lawless acts of individuals. He dismissed that to his
own satisfaction by remarking that:

" 'All Belgians are dogs, and all would do these things unless
they are taught what will hajjpen to them.'

"Convincing logic !

"With a hard glint in his eye he told us the purpose of his work;
he came back to it over and over, but the burden of what he had
to say was something like this:

" 'We shall make this place a desert. We shall wipe it out so
that it will be hard to find where Louvain used to stand. For
generations people will come here to see what we have done, and
it will teach them to respect Germany and to think twice before they
resist her. Not one stone on another, I tell you — kein Stein auf
einander !'

"I agreed with him when he remarked that people would come
here for generations to see what Germany had done — but he did
not seem to follow my line of thought. . . .

"We went on into the freight yards and were greeted by a num-
ber of officers with hopeful talk about a train coming from Brus-
sels with food. We were given chairs . . . settled down and lis-
tened to the stories of the past few days. It was a story of clear-
ing out civilians from a large part of the town; a systematic routing
out of men from cellars and garrets, wholesale shootings, the gen-
erous use of machine guns, and the free application of the torch —
the whole story enough to make one see red. And for our guidancp
it was impressed on us that this would make people respect Ger-
many and think twice about resisting her." Pp. 159-165.

186 The Creed of Deutschtum

draw of the happy, animated groups of German
soldiers, "lounging oil the field, laughing and talk-
ing"; with lighted pipes, "singing the beautiful
home and soldier songs which often soften for the
time being, even the hardest hearts of warriors."

But would you like an idyl of that kind? Here
is one; it is the third panel of our triptych, a third
German lesson at the front.

SCENE III
PLACE TERMONDE TIME SAME

Our American had made his way with difficulty
from Aerschot to Louvain.

From the windows of the plundered and fire-blackened
houses which lined the road from Aerschot to Louvain,
still hung white flags made from sheets and tablecloths
and pillowcases — pathetic appeals for the mercy which
was not granted.

At Louvain we came upon another scene of destruction
and desolation. Nearly half the city was in ashes. Most
of the principal streets were impassable from fallen
masonry. The splendid avenue and boulevards were lined
on either side by the charred skeletons of what had once
been handsome buildings. The front of many of the
houses were smeared with crimson stains.

Li comparison to its size, the Germans had wrought
more wide-spread destruction in Louvain than did the
earthquake and fire combined in San Francisco.

The looting had evidently been unrestrained. The roads
for miles in either direction were littered with furniture
and bedding and clothing. Such articles as the soldiers
could not carry away they wantonly destroyed. Hang-
ings had been torn down, pictures on the walls had been
smashed, the contents of drawers and trunks had been

American Versus German Viewpoint 187

emptied into the streets, literally everything breakable
had been broken. This is not from hearsajs remember ;
I saw it with my own eyes. And the amazing feature of
it all was that among the Germans there seemed to be no
feeling of regret, no sense of shame. Officers in immacu-
late uniforms strolled about among the ruins, chatting
and laughing and smoKing.

Attitude of German Officers

Mr. Hugh Gibson, secretary of the American le-
gation in Brussels, was in Louvain on the second
day and this is what he saw:

.... The Germans had dragged chairs and a dining
table from a nearby house into the middle of the square in
front of the station. . . . Some officers, already consid-
erably the worse for drink, insisted that the three diplo-
matists join them in a bottle of wine. And this while the
city was burning and rifles were cracking, and the dead
bodies of men and women lay sprawled in the streets.

Indeed, their "beautiful home and soldier songs"
as you say, had softened their hearts, but the scene
is a different one, isn't it?

But we have the same happy soldiers "lounging,
talking and laughing," just as your professor de-
scribes them, and smoking and drinking (though
it is beer and wine instead of coffee) and "every-
body is elated," just as you say.

But the Belgian townspeople, what of them?
Do the happy soldiers see them? I don't know.

Louvain was not destroyed by bombardment or
in the heat of battle. The Germans had entered it
unopposed and had been in undisputed possession

188 The Creed of Deutschtum

for several days. Why did they burn the city house
by house and shoot down the townspeople, men,
women and children?

As with Aerschot, there are two versions, con-
tradictory and irreconcilable.

The Germans say that in accordance with a con-
spiracy they were attacked by the townspeople;
what we called "sniping" in Vera Cruz. The
townspeople say that in the inky blackness of night
the German garrison, mistaking for Belgians a
body of their own troops retreating and falling back
upon Louvain, opened fire upon them, and so what
approximates a massacre of civilians followed, and
the city was deliberately burned.

It doesn't matter. Even if the Germans were
attacked (though it be denied) were they justified
in shooting down, indiscriminately, civilians?

Why Was Louvain Burned?

But "why did you burn Louvain at all?" That
was the question which Mr. Powell asked the com-
manding general, von Boehn.

" 'Because,' replied the general, 'the townspeople
fired on our troops. We actually found machine
guns in some of the houses. And,' smashing his
fist down upon the table, 'whenever civilians fire
upon our troops we will teach them a lasting lesson.
If women and children insist on getting in the way
of bullets so much the worse for the women and
children.' "

American Versus German Viewpoint 189

Yes, as General von Nieher officially notified the
citizens of Wavre, "without distinction of persons
the innocent will suffer with the guilty," and, as
was announced by proclamation to the citizens of
Hazzelt in the case of sniping, "a third of the male
population will be shot."

And so, as Mr. Powell, in another place, says,
"the citizens had attacked them and they would
teach the citizens, both of Louvain and of other
cities which they might enter, a lasting lesson. They
did. No Belgian will ever forget — or forgive —
that lesson. The orgy of blood and destruction
lasted for two days."

It was a German lesson at the front, a lesson
in German viewpoints. Not so charming as the
French lesson you picture, Dr. von Mach, but it
was better taught and learned — taught to the world,
was it not?t

t "Many subsequent visits to Louvain, and conversations with people
who were there when the trouble began, have only served to strengthen
the impression that the whole affair was part of a cold-blooded
and calculated plan to terrorise the civilian population.

"While we were there, it was frankly stated that the town was
being wiped out; that its destruction was being carried out under
definite orders. When the German Government realised the horror
and loathing with which the civilized world learned of the fate of
Louvain, the orders were cancelled and the story sent out that the
German forces had tried to prevent the destruction, had fought the
fire, and by good fortune had been able to save the Hotel de Ville.
Never has a government lied more brazenly. When we arrived, the
destruction of the town was being carried on in an orderly and
systematic waj^ that showed careful preparation. The only thing
that saved the Hotel de Ville was the fact that the German troops
had not progressed that far with their work when the orders were
countermanded from Berlin.

190 The Creed of Deutschtum

General von Boehn's View

The interview between Mr. Powell and General
von Boehn is destined to become classic. It had
been sought by the general, who had expressed a
wish to have an opportunity to talk with Mr. Pow-
ell, to give him the German version of the treat-
ment of the Belgian civil population for the en-
lightenment of the American public. Mr. Powell
was accordingly invited to dine with the general.
Here is more of the conversation as given by the
former as "nearly verbatim" as he could remember
it.

"It was only when he learned how civilization regarded his crimes,
that the Emperor's heart began to bleed.

"The true facts as to the destruction of Louvain will startle the
world— hardened though it has become to surprise at German crimes.
Unfortunately, however, it is impossible to publish the details at this
time without endangering the lives of people still in Belgium under
German domination. But these people will speak for themselves
when the Germans have been driven from Belgian soil, and they are
once more free to speak the truth." Gibson's Journal, etc., pp. 171-2.

"One of the officers I saw to-day told me that the Germans were
deliberately terrorizing the country through which they passed. It
is a perfectly convincing explanation of German doings in this coun-
try, but I did not think they were prepared to admit it so frankly.
This frank fellow made no claim that civilians had attacked the Ger-
man troops; his only observation was that they might do so unless
they were so completely cowed that they dared not raise their hands.
He emphasized the fact that it was not done as a result of bad
temper, but as part of the scheme of things in general. For my
information, he remarked that in the long run this was the most
humane manner of conducting war, as it discouraged people from
doing things that would bring terrible punishment upon them. And
yet some of these Belgians are ungrateful enough to complain at
being murdered and robbed." Ibid., p. 190.

American Versus German Viewpoint 191

"But why wreak your vengeance on women and chil-
dren?" I asked,

"None have been killed," the general asserted positively.

"I am sorry to contradict you, general," I asserted, with
equal positiveness, "but I have myself seen their bodies.
So has Mr. Gibson, the secretary of the American lega-
tion in Brussels, who was present during the destruction
of Louvain."

"Of course," replied General von Boehn, "there is al-
ways danger of women and children being killed during
street fighting if they insist on coming into the streets.
It is unfortvinatc, but it is war !"

"But how about a woman's body I saw with the hands
and feet cut off? How about the white-haired man and
his son whom I helped to bury outside of Sempst who had
been killed merely because a retreating Belgian soldier
had shot a German soldier outside their house?

"There w^ere 22 bayonet wounds in the old man's face.
I counted them. How about the little girl, two years
old, who was shot while in her mother's arms by an Uhlan
and whose funeral I attended at Heyst-op-den-Berg?
How about the old man near Vilvorde who was hung by
his hands from the rafters of his house and roasted to
death by a bonfire being built under him?"

The general seemed taken aback by the exactness of my
information.

"Such things arc horrible if true," he said. "Of course,
our soldiers, like soldiers in all armies, sometimes get
out of hand and do things which we would never tolerate
if we knew it. At Louvain, for example, I sentenced
two soldiers to 12 years' penal servitude each for assault-
ing a woman."

"Apropos of Louvain," I remarked, "why did you de-
stroy the library?"

"We regretted that as much as any one else," was the
answer. "It caught fire from burning houses and we
could not save it."

General von Boehn is as good as a guide book in ex-
plaining German war pictures, is he not?

192 The Creed of Deutschtum

Richard Harding Davis' Views

I have refrained from quoting the Belgian ac-
count of what happened because it is ex parte tes-
timony. But another American eye witness, Rich-
ard Harding Davis, writes :

For many miles we saw procession after procession of
peasants fleeing from one burning village, which had been
their home, to other villages, to find only blackened walls
and smouldering ashes.

"Fifty Germans were killed and wounded," said Gen-
eral von Ludwitz, the military governor of Louvain, "and
for that Louvain must be wiped out — so !" In pantomime
with his fist he swept the papers across the table. . . .
Were he telling us his soldiers had destroyed a kitchen
garden his tone could not have expressed less regret.
Davis watched the scene from the windows of the train
in which he was held at the station. The Germans that
night "crowded the windows of the train, boastful, gloat-
ing, eager to interpret."

Outside the station in the public square the people of
Louvain passed in an unending procession, women bare-
headed, weeping, men carrying the children asleep on
their shoulders, all hemmed in by the shadowy arm of
gray wolves. Once they were halted, and among them
was marched a line of men. These were on their way to be
shot. And, the better to point the moral, an officer halted
both processions and, climbing to a cart, explained why
the men were to die. He warned others not to bring down
upon themselves a like vengeance.

As those being led to spend the night in the fields looked
across to those marked for death they saw old friends,
neighbors of long standing, men of their own household.
The officer bellowing at them from the car was illuminated
by the headlights of an automobile. He looked like an
actor held in a spotlight on a darkened stage.

At Louvain that night the Germans were like men alter
an orgy.

American Versus German Viewpoint 193

Awful Price Belgians Paid

If the Belgian civilians sniped the German sol-
diery the latter were undoubtedly justified in shoot-
ing offenders but, Dr. von Mach, do you think they
were justified in shooting the citizens indiscrim-
inately, the innocent with the guilty?

And, if you do, do you think they were justified
in systematically burning and pillaging the homes
and workshops and other buildings of the guilt-
less?

You have imagination; think what that means:
the poor and the rich, the sick and the well, the
old and the young, the helpless and the strong, the
bread winners and their dependents, all made des-
titute without a place wherein to live or to work,
without means of support, the innocent and the
guilty, thrown helpless upon the world to be fed
by American charity, and later — what? And all
this because, if you believe the allegation, some
rash hotheads sniped a chivalrous, humane soldiery.

In every large city there are hotheads and men-
tal defectives and fanatics. It was a policy of ter-
rorism and intimidation. Do you think this the
only policy that would suffice to overcome resistance
to the conquerors? Could they not, for instance,
have been satisfied with temporarily rounding up
the inhabitants in concentration camps to stop snip-
ing?

We Americans did not sack and burn Vera Cruz,
though they sniped us. No, as Mr. Powell says,

19.4 The Creed of Deutschtum

"The bombardment of cities, the destruction of his-
toric monuments, the burning of villages and, in
many cases, the massacre of civilians was the price
which the Belgians were forced to pay for resisting
the invader."

You ask us to imagine (with your kindly pro-
fessor) the "iron line" after the French lesson he
describes, again on the march and singing "Ich hatt
emen Kameraden." After each verse rang the re-
frain :

"The birds in the woods are singing,

Are singing to warm your heart.
At home, ah, at home, your dear ones.

We'll meet and never will part.
Gloria ! Gloria ! Victoria !

With heart and hand for the Fatherland !

Listen once more. Do you hear the song of
those same humane German soldiers?

Do you see them again marching, but now drunk
with the orgies of sackings and burnings and kill-
ings of Aerschot, of Vise, of Tirlemont, of Liege, of
Termonde, of Malines, of Louvain and God knows
how many towns and villages and hamlets ? In the
glare of the flames you see them; and again with
light hearts they sing:

"The birds in the woods are singing,
Are singing to warm your heart.

At home, ah, at home, your dear ones.
We'll meet and never will part."

It is the same refrain. And as they sing you
see, too, by the same light of the burning towns

American Versus German Viewpoint 195

and villages, the long lines of panic-stricken Bel-
gians fleeing from their "homes," and you see, near
by, the condemned — ^husbands, sons, brothers, "dear
ones" — being led away to the place of their killing.

Other Pictures Drawn

There are other pictures of other scenes which I
might draw; the picture of the people — innocent —
non-combatants, women and men — killed in their
beds in Antwerp by bombs thrown by a Zeppelin
in the attempt to assassinate the royal family.

This picture, one that Mr. Powell saw, would
include among the killed and wounded a child man-
gled by a shell; a woman leaning out of her win-
dow, her head blown off; another woman blown to
fragments splotching the floor, the walls, the ceil-
ing with . . . and then fill in the picture with tot-
tering walls and skeletons of houses wantonly
blown to pieces.*

* Mr. Hugh Gibson besides being in Louvain had the good fortune
to be in Antwerp the night of the Zeppelin raid. His Journal (above
mentioned) gives a detailed description from his own observation of
the destruction and murder wrought. From it I take the following
bits to substantiate Mr. Powell's statements:

"The first bomb was in a little street around the corner from the
hotel, and had fallen into a narrow four-story house, which had
been blown into bits. . . . The street itself was filled with debris
and was impassable. From this place we went to the other points
where bombs had fallen. As we afterwards learned, ten people
were killed outright; a number have since died of their injuries
and a lot more are injured, and some of these may die. A number
of houses were completely wrecked and a great many will have to
be torn down. Army officers were amazed at the terrific force of
the explosions. The last bomb, dropped as the Zeppelin passed

196 The Creed of Deutschtum

I pass over the destruction of works of art that
never can be replaced; but to complete Dr. von
Mach's pictures of the "German viewpoint," let me
mention only one of the many he has omitted, that
of Malines Cathedral.

over our heads, fell in the centre of a large square — la Place du
Poids Publique. It tore a hole in the cobblestone pavement, some
twenty feet square and four or five feet deep . . . many of the
houses were expected to fall at any time. . . . Another bomb fell
not far from the houses of the Consul General and the Vice Consul
General, and they were not at all pleased. . . .

"The line of march [of the Zeppelin] was straight across the town,
on a line from the General Staff, the Palace where the Queen was
staying with the royal children, the military hospital of Ste. Eliza-
beth, filled with wounded, the Bourse, and some other buildings. It
looks very much as though the idea had been to drop one of
the bombs on the Palace. The Palace itself was missed by a narrow
margin, but large j^ieces of the bomb were picked up on the roof
and shown me later in the day by Inglebleek, the King's Secretary.
The room at the General Staff, where I had been until half an
hour before the explosion, was a pretty ruin, and it was just as
well for us that we left when we did. . . .

"Inglebleek, the King's Secretary . . . said that the Queen was
anxious I should see what had been done by the bombs of the night
before. He wanted me to go right into the houses and see the
horrid details. I did not want to do this, but there was no getting
out of it under the circumstances.

"We drove first to the Place du Poids Publique and went into
one of the houses which had been partially wrecked by one of the
smaller bombs. Everything in the place had been left as it was
until the police magistrate could make his examination and report.
We climbed to the first floor, and I shall never forget the horrible
sight that awaited us. A poor policeman and his wife had been
blown to fragments, and the pieces were all over the walls and
ceiling. Blood was everywhere. Other details are too terrible even
to think of. I could not stand any more than this one room. There
were others which Inglebleek wanted to show me, but I could not
think of it. And this was only one of a number of houses where
peaceful men and women had been so brutally killed while they
slept." Pp. 140-144.

American Versus German Viewpoint 197

Picture a deserted and undefended city, "as si-
lent and deserted as a cemetery ; not a human being
to he seen." That city, Malines, bombarded by the
Germans, although not a Belgian soldier in it.

And picture a splendid cathedral looming high
above that silent city; and then imagine shells de-
liberately aimed at that wonderful cathedral until
it was little more than a heap of debris; and then,
the cathedral destroyed, imagine, in that city of the
dead, shells bursting with a shattering crash in
deserted buildings, the whole front of those build-
ings crashing down about you in a cascade of brick
and plaster! That was what Mr. Powell saw. Is
this wanton bombardment of a deserted city and
of a great work of art, a cathedral of religion, "the
German viewpoint"? And is this that effect of
bringing "the educated classes into the army" — of
German kultur — for which the great von Moltke
hoped?

Dr. von Mach in his "German viewpoint" goes
on to tell of the German soldiers when going into
battle singing, during "the thunder of the cannon/'
Koerner's battle hymn, company after company
joining in the magnificent song:

"Father, I call to Thee.
The roaring artillery's clouds thicken round ine,
The hiss and the glare of the loud bolts confound me.

Ruler of battles, I call on Thee;

O Father, lead Thou me!"

Shall we picture the soldiers again amidst these
"roaring artillery's clouds," "the thunder of the can-

198 The Creed of Deutschtum

non;" and again singing, while they bombarded the
cathedral dedicated to their God, "Father, I call
to Thee?" and did "the very air seem purified" "be-
fore the grand conception of God and man" ? Per-
haps, after all, it is only a matter of viewpoint.

No, Dr. von Mach, you and your fellow propa-
gandists, Dr. Dernburg and Dr. Miinsterberg, Dr.
Albert and others, appeal in vain to the American
people. You do not know the true full-blooded
American of the twentieth century. Americans are
governed by feelings of humanity, of pity, of mercy,
of fair play.

Those are the ideals of our national conscience.
Americans believe in a government for the people
and by the people, not in a government by an auto-
cratic military caste, without pity, without mercy,
without regard for the rights of mankind.

If I read the signs of public opinion aright, if I
correctly understand American ideals of human
rights, Germany stands condemned by American
opinion. America cares nothing for the "necessi-
ties of war," whether argued as an excuse for crimes
against humanity by a German General Staff in
1914, or a "Spanish Butcher" in Cuba in 1898; she
cares nothing for fine-spun specious arguments as
to why Germany was not to blame for the invasion
of Belgium. She sees only a peaceful, unoffending
nation defending her inalienable rights to her own
soil. And she sees the inhabitants for this offence
shot down, and their houses, one by one, put to
the torch ; she sees tens of thousands of homes deso-

American Versus German Viewpoint 199

late, and hundreds of thousands of inhabitants driv-
en into exile, or starving and dependent upon
American charity — all this, mind you, not as a
sporadic instance in one city, but repeatedly, day
by day, in many cities and towns; and not as un-
avoidable accidents from the shelling of the enemy
in battle, but deliberately and systematically and
unnecessarily, after the capture and occupation of
the city, for the sole purpose of revenge, to over-
come resistance by terrorism, as officially proclaimed
and officially justified. It is for these reasons, if
for no others, that Germany appeals in vain to
American sympathy.

The German Ideal of Government

Before closing let me say a word upon one of
the German ideals of government. This ideal is,
the responsibilities of government should he under-
taken for the people by the state.

The "state" stands for an abstract conception
of authority, an entity. In practice it is an auto-
cratic caste, at the head of which is the Kaiser, who,
as he has time and again proclaimed, rules by '*di-
vine right."

"We, the Hohenzollerns, regard ourselves as ap-
pointed by God to govern and lead the people whom
it is given us to rule, for their well-being and ad-
vancement of their national and intellectual inter-
ests," announced the Kaiser.

And again: "Those who are willing to help me

200 The Creed of Deutschtum

I heartily welcome whoever they may be; those
who oppose me m this task I will crush." In such
a state we have the embodiment of "efficiency"
or kultur.

As Professor Francke has told us, the German
people, in every class (with the exception of the
party with democratic ideals) consider it an "obli-
gation," a duty, to subordinate self, all individual
interests, all individual desires and welfare to this
state.

It is the conception of "state" and citizenship,"
of Plato and Socrates. The German state gov-
erns for the people. And as the basis of efficiency
is power to impose, the army and militarism become
the foundation of the state, and the autocratic caste
that governs in the name of the state becomes a
military caste. "We belong to each other. I and
the army. Thus we are born for one another, and
thus we will stand together in an indissoluble bond
in peace or storm, as God will it," proclaimed the
Kaiser.

The authority of the state rests on the Kaiser
and the army, not on the will of the people, as in the
American republic, England and France.

From the American viewpoint we are forced,
however unwillingly, to the conclusion (in consid-
eration of German warfare and German ideals of
government) that Germany must be regarded in
mar as the enemy of civilization, and in peace as
the enemy of democracy.

Between the autocratic German viewpoint and

Arnericaii Versus German Viewpoint 201

the democratic American viewpoint there is an ir-
reconcilable conflict — a conflict of ideals that can-
not be settled by argument, by citation of facts, by
appeals to logic or to moral judgment.

It can only be settled by the arbitrament of arms.
If the allies win, we may expect that the ideals of
the democratic viewpoint will receive a world-wide
acceptance. It was thus that the conflict between
the ideals of freedom and slavery was settled in this
country only by the acceptance of the arbitrament
of war.

If, on the other hand, Germany wins, the United
States of America still remains to be settled with,
and that conflict of viewpoints, between American
democratic ideals and German autocratic ideals,
will still exist, to be settled some day in the future
by the arbitrament of the sword.

THE GERMAN POLICY OF TERRORISM

In my first article I contrasted the methods of
the German army in carrying on war in Belgium,
as seen from the American viewpoint, and as seen
from the German viewpoint.

And I pointed out why, in consequence of this
difference in viewpoints, Germany had lost the sym-
pathy of real Americans.

There are numerous other policies, both military
and political, in regard to which the two viewpoints

202 The Creed of Deutschtum

are radically antagonistic. These differences have
produced that irreconcilable conflict of opinion upon
which I dwelt.

Some of these I discuss to-day ; but before doing
so let me point out and insist, as emphatically as I
can, that it was not the German soldier that was
responsible for the inhuman atrocities in Belgium,
and the laying waste of the cities and towns.

The soldier must obey. The responsibility lies
wholly upon the men "higher up," upon the govern-
ment which ordered the policy and gave the com-
mands. The German soldier is not to be blamed.

That it was the government policy to overcome
resistance of the civilian population by a policy of
terrorism — by exacting money tribute from cap-
tured cities, by taking hostages to be killed in case
of resistance by civilians, by shooting a large num-
ber of unoffending citizens in retaliation for offences
committed by others, and to deter further resistance
by burning wholesale the houses and turning out
the inhabitants destitute, and by many other ruth-
less acts that were a revival of the middle ages —
needs no argument.

The policy was publicly announced to the world
through proclamations issued by such commanding
generals as von Buelow, von Emmich, von Boehn,
von der Goltz, von Nieher, von Luetwitz and Major
Dieckmann.

It is only by reading these proclamations that
we can fully realize this policy, a relic of the middle
ages, and comprehend the viewpoint from which

American Versus German Viewpoint 203

the Germans ordered the atrocities committed. For
example, the following were issued:

First, two general proclamations of August 4
and August 9, by Generals von Emmich and von
Buelow respectively, to the Belgian nation, an-
nouncing the German policy and demanding a "free
passage."

That in the absence of resistance the population
would be treated kindly, but that "we will act se-
verely on any attempt by the population to show
resistance to the German troops or to do injury
to the military interests."

That "the destruction of bridges, tunnels and
railway lines will be regarded as hostile acts."

That Belgians "will have to choose" and

That "it depends on your wisdom and under-
standing patriotism to avoid for your country the
horrors of war."

Proclamations Threaten

Accordingly, on August 17, a proclamation from
the German viewpoint to the citizens of Hasselt an-
nounced: "In the case of civilians shooting on
the German army, a third of the male population
will he shot''

On August 22, a proclamation by von Buelow
announced to citizens at Liege that:

"It was with my consent that the general had
the whole place (Andenne) burnt down and about
100 people shot," and that Liege would be treated

204 The Creed of Deutschtum

in the same way if the inhabitants attacked the
German troops.

On August 23, a proclamation by von Buelow
announced to the citizens of Namur:

1 — That citizens who did not betray the presence
of Belgian and French soldiers would be "con-
demned to hard labor for life," and that every such
soldier found would "be immediately shot."

2 — That any citizen who did not inform the au-
thorities of the existence of any arms, powder or
dynamite which he knew of would be shot.

3 — That 10 hostages would be taken from "each
street," and if there was any uprising in the street
the corresponding "10 hostages will be shot."

On August 27, a proclamation by von Nieher
notified the citizens of Woevre that if the balance
of the war levy of $600,000 was not paid on Sep-
tember 1, "the town of Woevre will be set on fire
and destroyed," and "without distinction of per-
sons, the innocent will suffer with the guilty."

Some 50 houses were set on fire and hostages
taken in reprisal for alleged but denied sniping.

On September 8, a proclamation by Major
Dieckmann notified the citizens of Grivegnee, of
Beyne-Heusay, Bois le Breux, and Fleron of a
large number of acts and failure to act for which
the penalty was death.

Among these misdemeanors, some trivial, a fail-
ure to obey the order "hands up," and failure to
inform the military commandant of the location of
"quantities greater than 100 litres of petroleum.

American Versus German Viewpoint 205

benzine, benzol, or any similar liquid," of which he
had knowledge. (It followed that if an employee
did not inform on his employer, or a friend upon
a friend, he incurred death, and if he did, his em-
ployer or friend incurred death.)

Persons held as hostages, when their relieving
substitutes did not present themselves within 24
hours of the appointed time, incurred death, and
also if the population of the communes did not re-
main "quiet in any circumstances."

On September 4, a proclamation by von Boehn
notified the inliabitants of Termonde to "hoist the
white flag immediately and to cease fighting. If
you do not agree to this summons the town will
be razed in a quarter of an hour by a very heavy
bombardment."

On October 5, a proclamation by von der Goltz
announced :

"In future, the localities nearest to the place
where similar acts (destruction of a railway line
and telegraph wires) take place will he pumshed
mthout pity, it matters little whether they are ac-
complices or not. For this purpose hostages have
been taken near the railway lines thus menaced,"
etc.

In view of these proclamations, the claim of the
Belgians that when German troops have been re-
sisted at the entrances of a village with shots fired
by regular Belgian troops, the population has been
held responsible, and punished by executions, fire
and pillage, is not incredible. One instance, at

206 The Creed of Deutschtum

least, is vouched for by Powell, the instance he
threw up at General von Boehn without contra-
diction.

That such proclamations were not mere bluff,
but were literally carried out, the facts cited by
them give evidence. The world knows it, too, from
the ruins of cities and towns just as it knows by
the debris that an earthquake destroyed Italian
cities.

The Evidence of German Soldiers' Diaries

And the world knows it from the accounts writ-
ten in the diaries of captured German soldiers, even
if all other evidence be disbelieved.

I have cited the evidence of Americans; let me
cite the evidence of these German diaries in order
that the German propagandists in this country may
understand the reasons for the failure of their ap-
peal to the American viewpoint. It will be seen
that the German method of warfare is not confined
to Belgium, but is carried into France.

At the entrance of the village (near Dinant) were
about 50 villagers shot for having treacherously fired
upon our troops during the night. Many others were
shot so that we counted over 200. Women and children,
with lamps in their hands, had to witness the terrible
sight. We ate our rice among the corpses.

{From the diary of Private Philip of Kamenz, Saxony, First
Battalion, 178th Infantry.)

Langevillier, Aug. 22.
Village destroyed by the Eleventh Pioneer Battalion;
three women hanged on trees.

{From a soldier's diary.)

A^tierican Versus German Viewpomt 207

Of the inhabitants, 300 were shot. Those who survived
the volley were requisitioned as grave diggers. The
women were a sight, but it cannot be helped.

(Pnvate SchlmUer of the Third Battery Fourth Field Artillery,
of the Guard.)

Cirey, Aug. 24.
In the night, incredible things have taken place; shops
plundered, money stolen, violences. . . . Simply to make
your hair stand on end.

(From an officer's diary.)

Dinant, Aug. 25.
The Belgians, at Dinant on the INIeuse, fired on our
regiment from inside the houses. We shot every one we
could see, or we threw them out of the windows, women
as well as men. The bodies lay three feet deep in the
streets.

(From a soldier's diary.)

Aug. 26.
The charming village of the Gue d'Hossus has, appar-
ently, though innocent, been destroyed by fire. It seems
that a cyclist fell down, which made his gun go off itself.
He was immediately shot at. The male inhabitants were
simply thrown into the flames. Let us hope that such
horrors will not take place again. At Leppes, about 200
men were shot. There, an example was necessary; it was
unavoidable that some innocents should suffer; but a proof
of all suspicious of guilt ought to be required, so that
such an indiscriminate shooting of all men might be con-
trolled.

(Diary of an officer of the 17Sth Regiment of Infantry, 12th
Saxony Army Corps.)

Laval-Morancy, Aug. 28.
Apparently a day of rest. Confiscation of all pro-
visions, bread, jam, wine, cigars; killed geese, chickens,
etc. Played piano, plundered fast !

(Diary of a soldier.)

We have thus destroyed eight houses with their inhabi-
tants. In one house only, two men with their wives and a

208 ' The Creed of Deutschtum

girl of eighteen were stabbed with bayonets. I might
have pitied the girl, for she had such an innocent way of
looking at us, but it was impossible to do anything
against the infuriated mob; then, indeed, they are no
longer men, but brutes. We are now on our way to

Sedan.

{Last page of an unknown soldier's notebook.)

Rethel, September 8.
Unfortunately, discipline is getting looser and looser.
Spirits, wine and plunder are the order of the day.

(From an officer's notebook.)

Sept. 8, 1914.
Tuesday, 8-9-14. — Reveille 5 a. m. Very violent fight
in the woods. Artillery brought into action. Order to
shoot down all Frenchmen, the wounded excepted, even
if they offer to lay down their arms, because the French
allowed us to come within a short distance, then took us
by surprise with intense firing.

{Last page from a killed soldier's notebook.)

The American Way by Contrast

It has been claimed by the apologists for Ger-
many that this policy of terrorism was justifiable
under the circimistances.

That is a matter of viewpoint.

The policy is justifiable if we deny all humani-
tarian notions of warfare and admit the German
contention that under circumstances, the circum-
stances of this war, everything is permissible.

That it is not the American viewpoint, was shown
by our attitude towards Spanish rule in Cuba.

We Americans went to war with Spain and drove

American Versus German Viewpoint 209

the Spaniards from Cuba, and gave back the island,
after conquering it, free to the inhabitants.

Why?

Because of the atrocities committed against the
non-combatant inliabitants in pursuance of a mil-
itary policy by Spain, without pity, without mercy,
and without regard to human rights, under General
Weyler.

The American conscience would not stand for
that.

But have not the Germans outdone the Span-
iards? The Spaniards did not aim at a policy of
terrorism so much as to cut off the source of re-
bellion ; they did not burn the cities and towns. Yet
when the Spanish viewpoint of war was shown to
the American people; when the press was able to
bring home to the full consciousness of the Amer-
ican people the cruelties inflicted by the "bloody
Weyler," as he was called, on the inhabitants of
Cuba, the American conscience was aroused and no
"necessities of war" were accepted as an excuse.
There arose an irrepressible conflict between the
American viewpoint and the Spanish viewpoint.

If we were willing to take up arms to enforce
this American humanitarian viewpoint upon Spain,
regardless of the Spanish necessities of war, do not
Germany and her organized propagandists appeal
in vain to the American people to morally tolerate
the still more atrocious German methods of carry-
ing on this war?

210 The Creed of Deutschtum

War as Taught by the German War Book

That it is the German contention that under cir-
cumstances nearly everything is permissible in war
is shown both by their writings and acts.

In a book issued by the general staff of the Ger-
man army, entitled "Usages of War on Land,"
extracts from which I have in a review before me,
there are a number of passages teaching this doc-
trine to the soldiers. In one he is taught that:

A war conducted with energy cannot be directed merely
against the combatants of the enemy state and the
positions they occupy, but it will and must in like man-
ner seek to destroy the total intellectual and material
resources of the latter. Humanitarian claims, such as
the protection of men and their goods, can only be taken
into consideration in so far as the nature and object of
the war permit.

Was it from this viewpoint that the splendid ca-
thedrals of Rheims and Malines and other great
public monuments were bombarded and shattered?

In another passage the soldier is taught to guard

himself against the danger of "sentimentality and

flabby emotion" of modern thought:

The danger can only be met by a thorough study of
war itself. By steeping himself m military history an
officer will be able to guard himself against excessive hu-
manitarian notions ; it will teach him that certain severi-
ties are indispensable to war, nay more, that the only true
humanity very often lies in a ruthless application of them.

Was this the viewpoint from which, as described
in the German soldiers' diaries, they threw women
as well as men out of the windows of the houses

American Versus German Viewpoint 211

until the bodies lay piled three feet in the street,
cast the "male inhabitants into the flames," stabbed
the women in the homes with bayonets or hung them
to the trees, shot down Frenchmen who offered to
"lay down their arms" — acts that made even the
hair of the German soldier "stand on end"?

And was it with this passage from the text-book
in mind that the Kaiser in 1900 instructed his troops
embarking for China in the following words:

When you come into touch with the enemy, give no
quarter, make no prisoners. A thousand years ago the
Huns, under their King, Attila, made themselves a name
which still lives in tradition. Do you likewise strike home,
so that for a thousand years to come no Chinaman may
ever again dare to look askance at a German.

On the other hand, certain acts, such as looting
of private property, are forbidden, but little atten-
tion seems to have been paid to such prohibitions
in this war.

It must be from the German viewpoint, as taught
in this official text-book, that Admiral Schliepe, in
the Lokal Anzeiger (as cited by the New York
Times), complained bitterly that Germans in their
conduct of war, and especially in this war, have
been far too considerate!

The purely human side of war receives too much
attention !

England is choking Germany, and under the cir-
sumstances everything is permissible ! England may
throw up her hands and exclaim, "Oh, those Ger-
man barbarians!" The British may accuse Ger-

212 The Creed of Deutschtum

mans of being invaders also, but these names must
be borne. And other German authorities high up,
even Admiral von Tirpitz, the naval secretary of
state, have given voice to the same sentiments.

And so, from this viewpoint, Germany, according
to the press despatches, goes into a wild ecstasy of
enthusiasm because her fleet bombards the English
towns of Scarborough, Whitby and Hartlepool,
two of these unfortified pleasure resorts like Atlan-
tic City and Bar Harbor and Beverly, and knocks
hotels and dwelling houses to pieces and kills non-
combatants, men and women — servant girls and
babies in arms, and then proudly sails safely home.
Under the circumstances, as they say, everything is
permissible.

And from this viewpoint it must be that German
aeroplanes dropped bombs upon English towns, rip-
ping to pieces the houses of non-combatants and
killing men, women and children ; and by the same
policy bombs have been dropped in Paris and Ant-
werp and Warsaw and numerous undefended places
with intent to kill, or perfect indifference as to
whether non-combatants were killed or not.

It was according to this viewpoint that Germany
sowed the North Sea with mines and blew up harm-
less fishing and other vessels.

The Policy of Destroying Merchantmen

And now comes the announcement by the Ger-
man Government that it w^ll blow up and sink, if it

Ainerican Versus Gentian Viewpoint 213

can, by submarines, British merchantmen with their
crews and passengers, though the latter be Ameri-
cans and other neutrals; and this notwithstanding
the laws of war require that crews and passengers
shall first be removed in safety before the ship is
destroyed.

And if by chance, owing to the use of a neutral
flag by English merchantmen to escape (a practice
common in all wars, by all nations) an American
ship is mistaken for an English one and blown up
with its crews and passengers — so much the worse
for the American ship.

The established rule that the ship shall be first
searched to determine its nationality is to have no
binding force on a German submarine. The avowed
policy is to attack the non-combatant British mer-
chant marine by submarines, and as submarines
cannot take off crews and passengers, the human
freight will have to go down with the ship. And
this notwithstanding the fact that transatlantic
liners carry for the most part American passengers.

Are we to have another Titanic disaster? That
would have happened if the Lusitania had been
sunk by a submarine.

Then as to the flag. German warships are to
have a right to use a neutral flag to deceive and
capture merchantmen as did the Emden and other
cruisers, but the use of a neutral flag by merchant-
men to escape capture or being blown up must be
protested !

And as our ships cannot always be distinguished

214 The Creed of Deutschtum

by the flag or at sight without being boarded and
searched, they run the risk. This is the meaning of
the new German proclamation.

I pass over the immediate responsibility of Ger-
many's political and diplomatic activities for the
war — ^lier secret agreement with Austria, kept from
the powers during all the preliminary negotiations ;
her secretly backing Austria while claiming to be
working for peace; her refusal to join a conference
of four powers to act as mediators; her refusal to
give the same promise that France did to respect
the neutrality of Belgium; her plans for the inva-
sion of France through Belgium, long in advance,
by the construction on the Belgian frontier of a
system of strategic military railroads of little com-
mercial use ; her refusal to accept any of the several
modes of mediation acceded to by Russia; her sup-
pression of the offer of Russia (now just come to
light ) to leave the dispute to The Hague ; her dec-
laration of war, although she knew Russia and
Austria had actually agreed upon a basis of medi-
ation by which peace might well have been pre-
served.

All this is too large a subject for discussion here,
but may be read in the official publications of the
despatches of the great powers.

The Prostitution of Intellectual Honesty

And now, in closing, one word regarding the so-
called "Intellectuals": Are we not compelled to

American Versus German Viewpoint 215

believe it is owing to the unconscious influence of
the German viewpoint that a large number of Ger-
man university professors and others distinguished
in literature, science and learning, men of great per-
sonal probity and culture and hitherto commanding
the respect of the intellectual world, have, in their
aim to tell us "The Truth about Germany" in that
and other publications, sacrificed their intellectual
honesty to the cause of the fatherland.

Are we not compelled to believe that it is from
the German viewpoint that these intellectuals and,
still more flagrantly, the organized political propa-
gandists in this country, represented in the press by
Dr. Dernburg, Dr. von INIach, Dr. Albert, Dr.
Miinsterburg and Mr. Ritter, all of whom we are
glad to respect for their culture in other fields, have
misrepresented facts of common knowledge relat-
ing to the causes of and responsibility for this war
— have perverted the meaning of official dispatches
and actions and motives of the governments of Eng-
land and France and Belgium and Italy and Rus-
sia, and have sought, by the shallowest sophistries,
to throw dust in the eyes of the public and gain the
sympathy of the American people ?

If one wishes to recall to mind examples, one
need only think of the audacious assertion of the
propagandists that Germany offered to make a new
treaty with England to guarantee the neutrality of
Belgium and that England refused — a reckless as-
sertion without a single scrap of authoritative evi-
dence; the sophistical assertion that England and

216 The Creed of Deutsclitum

France had already violated the neutrality of Bel-
gium before Germany did; that England and
France intended to invade Belgium, thus forcing
Germany to do so ; the disingenuous argument and
misrepresentation that Belgium had forfeited its
own neutrality before the war; that England
claimed to declare war solely because of her treaty
with Belgium without regard to her obligations to
France; that England wished for war and did not
try to prevent it ; the disingenuous claim that Ger-
many strove to hold back Austria and maintain
peace, and many other statements similar in kind.

By their publications the propagandists have been
successful to a certain psychological and political
extent; to a psychological extent in that they have
undoubtedly presented to those who were already
national sympathizers with the fatherland, to those
who have the will to believe, a point of view by which
they can justify to themselves, in spite of the facts,
their belief in the justice of Germany's cause; to
a political extent in that they have produced a soli-
darity among those who have the will to believe.

But to neutral Americans, the publicists, the dip-
lomats, the historians, the jurists, the men of Amer-
ican universities, and the "man-in-the-street," who
without previous affiliations and without previous
national prejudices have studied for themselves the
facts as revealed in the official publications of the
belligerent nations, all this prostitution of intellec-
tual honesty must be destined to be useless.

THE AMERICAN CONSCIENCE
1914-15

(It is difficult at this date, 1917, when we are actually
at war with Germany and stirred to the depths of our
being by the great issues at stake, to go back in thought
to those pre-war days of 1914 and 1915, when we were
still neutral and passive. It is almost impossible to put
ourselves into the attitude of mind of those days previous
to the sinking of the Lusitania, to fully realize and feel
the atmosphere of doubt, hesitation and timidity as to
what course we should pursue, how far we should go in
the maintenance of American rights and American honor,
and in what manner and degree we should express our
sympathy with the allied nations. Although, as I be-
lieve, the great majority of native born Americans, not
of German descent, particularly those who had studied
the issues of the war, were intensely sympathetic with the
cause of the Allies, who they believed were fighting the
battles of humanity and civilization, there was still con-
siderable hesitation on the part of a good many to give
public expression to this sentiment, and many more
doubted whether our Government should take positive
action in defense of American rights. Immediately after
the sinking of the Lusitania opinion in favor of action
was general, but even this became to a degree quiescent as
the days of diplomatic note writing dragged on and noth-
ing was done. But finally, when Germany decreed ruth-
less submarine warfare to begin February 1, 1917, on
friend and foe alike, all doubt and hesitation disappeared.
The American conscience awoke and the nation found
itself at last. The issues raised in this essay, therefore,
are now dead. Nevertheless it is not well to neglect en-
tirely the lessons of the past which may usefully serve the
future, and it does no harm to record them from time to
time lest we forget. And so I venture to include this
and the following essay (The Disintegration of an Ideal)
in this collection though the issues they touched fortu-
nately, though tardily, proved to be ephemeral.)

THE AMERICAN CONSCIENCE, 1914-15 *

DOES silence give consent?
Germany broke the moral and inter-
national law of nations and invaded a
neutral state — Belgium. The American
answer was silence.

Germany broke the moral and international law
of nations and committed wholesale atrocities, as
a policy of terrorism, upon a Belgian civil popula-
tion. The American answer was silence.

Germany broke the moral and international law
of nations and ruthlessly, as a policy of terrorism,
destroyed and carried off private property. The
American answer was silence.

Germany broke the moral and international law
of nations and laid tribute of millions of dollars
upon a defenceless population. The American an-
swer was silence.

Germany broke at least the moral law of human-
ity and appropriated for its own armies the food of
a whole nation, leaving the inhabitants to starve
or to be fed by America. The American answer
was silence.

Germany broke the moral and international law
of nations and bombarded with its warships, and
dropped bombs from aeroplanes upon unfortified

* Printed in part in The Boston Herald, April 3, 1915.

219

220 The Creed of Deutschtum

cities and towns, killing non-combatants, men,
women and children. The American answer was si-
lence.

Germany broke the moral and international law
of nations and sowed the high seas with floating
and other mines, destroying neutral ships. The
American answer was silence.

Germany now breaks the moral and international
law of nations and destroys, by submarines, the mer-
chantmen of the enemy without first rescuing the
passengers and crew, but sinking them with the ships
— if they cannot save themselves. The American
answer thus far has been silence. Now Germany
has torpedoed and sunk an American passenger
steamship, the Falaha, drowning 112 of her pas-
sengers and crew, and has similarly destroyed the
steamer Aguila, with an estimated loss of nine lives.
In the case of the Falaba the submarine made no
attempt to help the drowning passengers, and it is
believed that some persons were killed by the ex-
plosion of the torpedo, so little time was given them
to save themselves. In the case of the Agidla,
it is reported that the submarine opened fire with
her guns, killing a woman passenger, the chief en-
gineer and two of her crew. There is reason to
believe an American lost his life on the Falaba,
Every day brings us news of a new barbarity.

How long, we may ask with all due regard to con-
servatism, is this kind of warfare to go on without
awakening a response from the American con-
science? I do not mean from our government at

The American Conscience, 1914--15 221

Washington. It has akeady committed itself to
silence and will do nothing; it is too late to act,
though very likely it will demand a money indem-
nity for the loss of an American life, if that has oc-
curred. I mean a public remonstrance from the
sentiment of the communities in which we live, let
them express it by any means and in any form they
will. It is not too late for the American people to
express their sentiments by public meetings, peti-
tions, resolutions of public bodies and organizations,
State Legislatures and other ways.

Some of my friends of a conservative, cautious
attitude of mind reply in answer to this, "What
good will it do to protest?" To this, those who do
not look at all national questions from only a ma-
terial point of view reply, "A good deal of good
that cannot be measured in materialistic terms or
in terms of the present." Let me endeavor to jus-
tify this answer.

This is plainly not a matter involving the ques-
tion of neutrality. But it is one that does involve
the assertion of American ideals of humanity and
of the national conscience. It is one, I believe, that,
so far as we fail to stand up manfully for those
ideals and follow the impulses of our conscience,
involves the loss of our national self-respect and of
national honor. It is one of moral duty and self-
respect.

There are a large number of Americans, the great
majority as I believe, who hold that by not pro-
testing against the "scrap of paper" doctrine and

222 The Creed of Deutschtum

the invasion of Belgium and all the barbarities that
have been practised against that brave little nation,
the United States lost the great opportunity that
was hers of taking a position in this world as a great
moral force — a position rightly due her. If the
United States had done that, she would have been
not only such a moral force in this war, but, in time
to come, after peace has been restored, having shown
the courage of her convictions, she would, by force
of character, be recognized in the council of nations
as a dominant factor in determining the general ac-
ceptance of and submission to international laws
that in the future will limit the barbarities of war,
and perhaps even secure an international court with
power to prevent them.

To the opportunist who asks, "What good will it
do?" we may ask in turn, "What harm will it do?"
The answers usually given are two:

First, we should gain the enmity of Germany.

But suppose we should — what of it? Are we to
refrain from asserting in the face of the world, if
need be, what we believe to be morally right in fear
that we should become ill-favored in the eyes of a
nation whose policy of barbarity has shocked the
world? Besides, all the signs of the times go to
show that we are fast becoming the object of ha-
tred of that nation, because, in addition to our
known sympathy with her enemies, we refuse to be
unneutral and stop selling munitions of war to any
nation that commands the seas. So, looking at it
in a purely practical, hard-headed way — if that is

The Arfierican Conscience, 1914-15 223

what is wanted — we shall gain Germany's ill-will
anyway.

Count Apponyi, in reply to the argument that all
the parties to this war were awaiting the judgment
of America, has already written voicing the senti-
ment of Austria-Hungary: "Well, that was so, but,
as far as we are concerned, it is no more."

The second and most common answer is that we
hope, if we keep silent — though we may venture
to appoint a day to pray for peace in our churches
— when the time comes for peace the United States
will be able to play the part of a friendly mediator.

Even if this hope be fulfilled, will the gain to the
world make up for what has been lost? And even
if Germany by that time shall have retained any
friendly feeling for us and be willing to accept us
as an arbitrator, what will the Allies say to us? Is
it not reasonable that they will say, could they be
blamed for saying: "Go to! What have you to
say to what terms we shall impose, — you who stood
by, in dumb silence, you who saw violated every
moral law of nations, every law of humanity vio-
lated, every human right for which Democracy
stands — for which you claim to stand — and had not
a word to say of protest. Go to ! What have you
to say to terms of peace!" And would not the Al-
lies be right?

Whether a protest of the nation would have af-
fected Germany's policy of terrorism in carrying
on this war and changed her methods, no one can
say. Yet it is reasonably a probability that if an

224 The Creed of Deutschtum

early protest by our government had been made, ex-
pressing the moral uprising of a nation, Germany
would have thought twice before bombarding unfor-
tified towns, sinking merchantmen with their crews
and passengers, and carrying out her harsh policies
in conquered Belgium; and her future policies
v/ould have been modified. Otherwise, why has she
sought to obtain by an organized propaganda the
moral support of the United States? No one has
more emphatically insisted upon the advantage ac-
cruing from the moral support of neutrals than Bis-
marck. He made it one of the foundation stones of
his diplomatic strategy and expressed it in his fa-
mous declaration: "If we attack, the whole weight
of the imponderables, which weigh much heavier
than material weights, will be on the side of the ad-
versaries whom we have attacked."

As one of the ablest writers on the war. Profes-
sor Munroe Smith,! has pointed out, it was just
these imponderables — "love of independence, fidel-
ity to treaty engagements and resentment against
flagrant wrong" — that determined Belgium's hope-
less resistance to Germany against overwhelming
force. The failure of German military strategy was
due to overlooking these imponderables. The
moral protest of American sentiment is an impon-
derable.

But, waiving this point, there is another and co-
gent reason why it would "do good" to have the na-

t Military Strategy versus Diplomacy in Bismarck's Time and
Afterwards; Political Science Quarterly, March, 1915.

The American Conscience, 1014-15 225

tional conscience express itself by protest. This rea-
son is because of our duty to ourselves and to our
own ideals of right and humanity. It is for ourselves,
even if not for others, that we should sj)eak out.

History shows that the moral conscience of a na-
tion, as well as of the individual, can only be main-
tained by standing up for its own ideals, for what
it believes to be right. If, when our conscience is
shocked, we do not do this, it soon becomes blunted
and callous, and we cease to have convictions that
will inflexibly determine the attitude of the nation
when moral issues are presented. Already, appar-
ently, our conscience has become dulled to the atroc-
ities of this war. At first we were stunned, we
could scarcely realize the horror of it all. Then we
were silent. Then our conscience became blunted,
callous, and now we take it all as a matter of course.
A few days ago we read that the British merchant
steamer Tanistan was, without warning, torpedoed
by a submarine and went down with all her crew,
saving one. We read also that the British steamer
Blackwood was similarly torpedoed while the crew
of the submarine, which came up from below, made
no attempt to assist in the rescue, but coolly looked
on. Then it was a Dutch vessel and now an English
ship crowded with passengers. We read again
that a neutral Swedish merchant vessel is sunk, w ith
all the crew, and we pass on to the next item with
hardly a conscious emotion. To-morrow it may be
the Lusitania.t or even the American ship Phila-

t The LiisUania was sunk about a month later, May 8.

226 The Creed of Deutschtum

delphia. Such news items of tlie day form simply
a paragraph to be casually read with a blunted con-
science— forgotten to-morrow !

If we think our national ideals and our national
conscience are worth preserving, we must be will-
ing to express publicly that conscience, and with
no uncertain voice. And if we wish American sen-
timent to be an "imponderable" that will influence
not only our own Government but world-thought
and the decisions of other nations, we must insist
upon being heard. William Lloyd Garrison was
actuated by the spirit of both these motives when
he wrote the memorable w^ords engraved by Boston
on the pedestal of his statue :

"I am in earnest. I will not equivocate.
I will not excuse. I will not retreat a
single inch, and I will be heard."

We will all admit that an individual is a man of
character according as his conduct is inflexibly de-
termined by fixed convictions. Well, the same is
equally true collectively of a nation. And when a
nation that meditates war, or is engaged in war,
knows in advance that any intended action will in-
exorably meet with the resistance of the moral con-
victions of neutral nations, it will, as Bismarck coun-
selled, hesitate before it loses the advantage of that
neutral nation's moral support.

It will, then, "do good" to have the national con-
science speak out, because a nation that thus as-
serts and maintains unshaken its convictions, will

The American Conscience, 1914^-15 227

itself be deterred by those convictions from com-
mitting unjustifiable acts v/hen tempted by the ne-
cessities of the moment, and also be a moral force
in deterring other nations from making unjust wars
and violating international laws of warfare. There-
fore is it a duty to ourselves.

Let us not forget that in protesting against Ger-
man methods of carrying on the war we protest
against more than the actual barbarities themselves.
These are only the expression of German political
and militarj^ philosophy, of the German national
conscience. In protesting we would raise our voice,
therefore, against those German ideals and that
German culture which teaches that "might goes be-
fore right"; "that the State is power and war is its
first most elementary function"; that war is in itself
a good thing, "the basis of all healthy development"
and "a moral necessity" demanded by "political
idealism"; that strong states have a moral right to
overcome weak states which might to go to the wall;
that "efforts directed towards the abolition of war
must be termed not only foolish but absolutely un-
moral and unworthy the human race"; that "the
idea of perpetual peace" is "a profoundly unethical
conception"; that in war all things are permissible
for the State to gain its ends; that "inexorability
and seemingly hideous callousness are among the
attributes necessary to him who would achieve great

228 The Creed of DeutscJdum

things in war" (Field Marshal von der Goltz) ;
that "in concluding treaties the State does so always
with the tacit reservation that there is no power be-
yond and above it to which it is responsible, and it
must be the sole judge as to whether it is expedi-
ent to respect its obligations" ; that "he who com-
mands, what need has he of agreements?"; that it
is a crime in a statesman not to seize opportunities
to make war upon a rival that seems likely to be-
come stronger than itself, or is "weakened and ham-
pered by affairs at home and abroad" ; "that the acts
of a State cannot be judged by the standard of in-
dividual morality."

These are a few of the many maxims that might
be taken at random from the writings of German
publicists and military writers. They fairly express
the national conscience of Germany, and are exem-
plified by the methods adopted in inciting and car-
rying on this war. They are not, therefore, merely
academic philosophies, they are ideals which have
passed into the thought of the present generation,
and have been endorsed by the military party re-
sponsible for the crime of this war.

That German culture is responsible for militarism
has been thus asserted by one German writer, G.
Fuchs: "We Germans have a characteristic form
of culture in nothing at all except as soldiers"
"The German nation owes its present position as a
European Power to the only form of culture which
it has as yet created, its army. It will need to as-
sert itself as an International Power by a similar

The American Conscience, 1914-15 229

manifestation, or disappear dishonorably." "The
army is the only great organism of culture, compris-
ing the entire nation, which we possess." "All cul-
ture is bought at the price of blood."

As one writer, a close and hitherto sj^mpathetic
student for many years of German Government and
life (W. H. Dawson) has said: "Germany stands
forth, on its own confession, as the representative
of national and social conceptions, ideals, and aims
which are entirely alien to those pursued by other
civilized nations. Its culture is a tribal culture
based on force, yet it seeks to impose this culture
on mankind for mankind's benefit."

If the people of our country were fully cognizant
of, or fully realized the meaning of German mili-
tary and political culture, I believe there would be
an uprising of national sentiment which would
sweep our Government before it and compel a pro-
test against Germany's methods in this war. Every
student of German culture has arrived at the con-
clusion that their methods in this war are not simply
momentarily chosen expedients to meet military ex-
igencies. To so regard them is a very superficial
point of view. There can be no manner of doubt
that they carry out long accepted principles and
long-thought-out policies ingrained in the thought
of the autocratic military caste. They are the ex-
pression of a philosophy of national life, of a polit-
ical philosophy formulated by its philosophers, his-
torians, publicists, statesmen and military writers,
and adopted by the autocratic class that rules Ger-

230 The Creed of Deutschtum

many. They are the expression of German ideals
of government, of world power and of the methods
of advancing them. Breaking the treaty with Bel-
gium and the invasion of that country was not sim-
ply an emergency measure ; it was the putting into
practice of a deep ingrained political philosophy.
The policy of terrorism which incited the atrocities
in Belgium, burned down cities and towns, took and
killed hostages, shot down innocent citizens to in-
timidate the guilty, commandeered the food of seven
millions of people and left them to starve — all this
was not simply the sequel of a novel emergency
measure; it was the practical expression of a po-
litical and military culture which may be read over
and over again in official literature; and so with the
killing of non-combatants by bombs and the sinking
of merchantmen with their crews and passengers.
It was the expression of the national conscience.
Nothing, I think, shows this interpretation more
plainly than the "stormy applause" which greeted
Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg's now historic
speech in the Reichstag, when he proclaimed the in-
tention of the govermnent to "hack its way through
Belgium." One would have thought that the very
awfulness of that violation, even as a "military ne-
cessity," would have awakened silent awe in the
assemblage. But, as the Vossische Zeitung re-
ported: "The jubilation which greeted these words
baffles description. One man spoke here in the name
of the nation."

From this point of view Germanism and Pan-

The American Conscience, 1914-15 231

Germanism are the greatest moral questions that
have been presented to America and the world since
the question of slavery was settled.

Between these ideals of German autocracy and
the ideals of American democracy there is an irrec-
oncilable, and, what I firmhj believe will prove to
he the case, an unavoidable conflict. It is more than
a figure of speech to say that war — a moral war —
is on between the American people and Germany.
But that war is not with German democracy, with
whom lies the future hope of the Empire. Between
the 20,000,000 of plain people of Germany, its de-
mocracy, and American democracy, there is a bond
of sympathy based on common ideals, common as-
pirations, common love of political liberty. The
moral war is with Germany's autocracy, and it is
against this ruling caste that American sentiment
should, and sooner or later will, utter its protest.
It will not, and should not be content with a pusil-
lanimous morality.

When our own American material "rights," our
ships, our cargoes, our trade in cotton or wheat or
copper, our money, are molested, we protest quickly
enough, and it is fair to say, if an American life is
threatened — though not in JVIexico. And when a
bungling, stupid German naval officer, without au-
thority from his government, sinks the American
ship Frye, we protest and demand reparation, as we
should. And now when England and France de-
fending the cause of democracy, the world over, an-
nounce a modified blockade of German ports as a

232 The Creed of Deutschtum

retaliatory means of stopping German barbarities
and bringing this war to an end, a clamor goes up
that we demand our technical rights and protest in
the interest of commerce. Apparently our commer-
cial interests are not willing to make this temporary
sacrifice, but there is talk of retaliation excited by
German propaganda.

But when our ideals, the ideals of the American
conscience are defied — we remain silent. And yet
idealism for humanity has been the strongest moral
element in our national life. If Sumner and Phil-
lips and Garrison and Lowell and Andrew and Lin-
coln were alive to-day would they remain silent?
And so we may ask, "Is the American conscience
dead?" Or is it that we are awaiting another Whit-
tier to sing as in the olden time? —

"Tell us not of banks and tariffs, — cease

your paltry pedler cries, —
Shall the good State sink her honor that

your gambling stocks may rise?
Would ye barter man for cotton? — That

your gains may sum up higher.
Must we kiss the feet of Moloch, pass our

children through the fire?
Is the dollar only real? — God and truth and

right a dream?
Weighed against your lying ledgers must our

manhood kick the beam.?"

THE DISINTEGRATION OF AN IDEAL

THE DISINTEGRATION OF AN IDEAL *

THE IDEAL

IN 1821 the Grecian "Senate" sent a formal
appeal to the people of the United States for
sympathetic support in the rebellion of Greece
against Turkish oppression, just as the Belgian
government sent an appeal in 1914 protesting
against the violation of Belgian independence by-
Germany and the atrocities committed by the Ger-
man army.

"The interest felt in the struggle rapidly in-
creased in the United States. Local committees
were formed, animated appeals were made, and
funds collected with a view to the relief of the vic-
tims of the war." Accordingly, on the assembling
of Congress in December, 1823, President Monroe
in his annual message addressed the following words
to the Congress:

A strong hope has been long entertained, founded on
the heroic struggle of the Greeks, that they would suc-
ceed in their contest and resume their equal station
among the nations of the earth. . . . From the facts
which have come to our knowledge, there is good cause
to believe that their enemy has lost forever all dominion

* Printed in the New York Times, November 21, 1915.

235

236 The Creed of Deutschtum

over them; that Greece will become again an independent
nation. That she may obtain that rank is the object of
our most ardent wishes. (Italics not in original.)

The President, plainly, did not pretend to moral
or political neutrality. On the contrary, he did not
hesitate to express the sympathy of the Adminis-
tration and the nation in the struggle that Greece
was maintaining to attain her independence and
sovereignty. In complete accord with this message
of the President, Webster introduced a resolution
to provide for defraying the expense incident to the
appointment of an agent or commissioner to be sent
to Greece to investigate the conditions there.

The specific intent of the resolution was not
a matter of great importance. On its face it only
purported to seek detailed information on the ex-
isting conditions in Greece, just as an agent might
have been sent at the beginning of this war to Bel-
gium to collect information regarding the condi-
tions from which the inhabitants were suffering as
a result of the German invasion. The agent, or
commissioner, was not to be a diplomatic represen-
tative to the Grecian Government. Whether such
an agent should be sent or not was only a matter
of expediency, and probably Webster himself cared
very little, it being a minor matter. Indeed, Web-
ster said he "did not desire that the resolution
should be at present acted upon, but simply that
it lie upon the table for the consideration and de-
liberate reflection of the House." The resolution
ostensibly sought to carry out in a practical form

The Disintegration of an Ideal 237

the President's policy of moral support. But its
author had another object in view which was more
than an expression of sympathy of the American
nation with a people struggling both against the op-
pression of the Turks and the hostile attitude of
the allied monarchies of Europe. It was not really
necessary for Congress to define our attitude. This
had already been done by the President. Monroe
had laid down the policy of the Government in its
relation to Greece, and this was to give the moral
support of our nation to the cause for which the
Greeks were fighting. In this he had the backing
throughout the country of public opinion, which was
universally in sympathy with Greece. Action by
Congress was no more necessary than it was in re-
ply to that part of the message now known as the
Monroe Doctrine, which stated our attitude toward
the threatened attempt of the Allied Nations of
Europe to interfere with the republics of South
America. That statement of our policy was never
acted upon by Congress, but it has become a fixed
national policy. So the President's statement of
his policy toward Greece required no action by
Congress. But Webster sought in the occasion, not
only to express his complete accord with the Pres-
ident, but to lay before Congress and the country
his convictions as to what our larger policy ought
to be when a small nation is oppressed by a greater
power, particularly when that power pretends by
the authority of autocracy and Divine Right to in-
terfere with the destinies of a free people or a peo-

238 The Creed of Deutschtum

pie struggling to be free. Greece, as he expressly
stated, was only an example of the prmciple.

The political conditions in Europe with which
Monroe and Webster dealt were very different
from what they are to-day, and the war that was be-
ing waged had a very different purpose from the
present war. The Holy Alliance has ceased to ex-
ist; the war was a revolution for independence.
But it is remarkable how modern are Webster's
thought and argument. Much of his speech might
be delivered to-day, when half the world is dying
because of the aggression of two autocratic mon-
archies. The names of Belgium and Luxemburg
and Serbia might be substituted for Greece, and the
atrocities committed in Louvain, Aerschot, Ter-
monde, Hartlepool, Scarborough, and on the high
seas, or any one of a score of places in France and
Serbia, might be substituted for Scio and Cyprus
and Greece; the German policy of "frightfulness"
and "terrorism," for the same Turkish policy in
1821, then upheld and morally justified by the al-
lied powers.

Webster speaks of Greece and Turkey and the
Holy Alliance, but when we read his words to-day
the pictures that come into our minds are not of
those states and that alliance of the far-away time
of 1821, but of the small states whose peoples and
whose sovereignties have been wronged in 1914, and
of another alliance.

Then again, though the Holy Alliance is dead,
one cannot help thinking that its principles still sur-

Tlie Disintegration of an Ideal 239

vive when one recalls to mind the "Little Peoples"
held in subjection against their will and national
aspirations by the autocratic empires of middle and
eastern Europe — of the Poles, the Bohemians
(Czechs), the Slovaks, the Croatians, the Slovenes,
the Ruthenians, the Litluianians, the Finns and Ar-
menians. These people are now "dumb under an
iron censorship."

Tlie reason for the modernness of Webster's
thought is that he dealt with international morality
and with principles that do not change with time.
His protest on behalf of Greece was a concrete ap-
j^licatiDn of these fundamental ideals. His motive
is eloquently expressed in his peroration :

I close, then, Sir, with repeating that the object of this
resolution is to avail ourselves of the interesting occasion
of the Greek revolution to make our protest against the
doctrines of the allied powers, both as they are laid
down in principle and as they are applied in practice.
I think it right, too. Sir, not to be unseasonable in the
expression of our regard, and, as far as that goes, in a
manifestation of our s^'mpathy with a long-oppressed and
now struggling people. I am not of those who would, in
the hour of utmost peril, withhold such encouragement
as might be properly and lawfully given, and, when the
crisis should be past, overwhelm the rescued sufferer with
kindness and caresses. The Greeks address the civilized
world with a pathos not easy to be resisted. They invoke
our favor by more moving considerations than can well
belong to the condition of any other people. They
stretch out their arms to the Christian communities of the
earth, beseeching them bv a generous recollection of their
ancestors, by the consideration of their ruined cities and
villages, by their wives and children sold into an accursed
slavery, by their blood, which they seem willing to pour

240 The Creed of Deutschtum

out like water, by the common faith and in the name
which unites all Christians, that they would extend to
them at least some token of compassionate regard.

The circumstances that led to Monroe's public
statement of the attitude of his Administration to-
ward Greece may be briefly told, but it is Webster's
cogent argument and moral stand on behalf of in-
ternational morality and democracy that have in-
terest for us to-day, and let us see the change that
has taken place in the national policy and how far
we have traveled from the pillars that marked our
ideals in the early days of the republic.

Early in 1821 a revolution burst out in Greece
against the tyranny of Turkish rule. By that rev-
olution, we all know, Greece eventually won her
independence after nearly eight years of an inde-
scribably bloody war. But this was only after the
aroused conscience of the people of Europe and the
United States had forced the monarchies of Europe
— England, France, and Russia — to break with
Metternich and the principles of the Holy Alliance
and to intervene. During the first six years Greece
had fought alone, unaided.

During the first year the progress of the revolu-
tion was favorable to Greece. Then there followed
a policy and campaign of "frightfulness" which it
would be difficult for us in this twentieth century
to take in or believe, were it not that we have seen
with our own eyes in the last year a very perfect
example of this policy, complete in almost all its
details. The Turkish atrocities in Greece in 1822

Tlie Disintegration of an Ideal 241

can be well appreciated by a consideration of pres-
ent-day German atrocities in Belgium, France, and
England, and the sinking of the Lusitania and
other ships on the high seas.

Early in the second year of the war of Grecian
independence there followed, to quote the words
of Daniel Y\^ebster in his memorable speech in
the House of Representatives, "that indescribable
enormity, that appalling monument of barbarian
cruelty, the destruction of Scio; a scene I shall not
attempt to describe ; a scene from which human na-
ture shrinks shuddering away; a scene having
hardly a parallel in the history of fallen man." The
Turkish fleet had landed an army of 15,000 men
on the beautiful Island of Scio. "Here," Web-
ster tells us, "was the seat of modern Greek lit-
erature; here were libraries, printing presses, and
other establishments which indicate some advance-
ment in refinement and knowledge. . . . There
was nothing to resist such an army. These troops
immediately entered the city and began an indis-
criminate massacre. The city was fired; and in
four days the fire and sword of the Turk rendered
the beautiful Scio a clotted mass of blood and ashes.
The details are too shocking to be recited. Forty
thousand women and children, unhappily saved
from the general destruction, were afterward sold
in the market of Smyrna, and sent off into distant
and hopeless servitude."

The population of Scio and the actual number
massacred are only roughly known, but according

242 The Creed of Deutschtum

to a modern writer, it is believed that out of 90,000
inhabitants, 23,000 were killed and 43,000 were sold
as slaves.

I have no intention of entering into an account
of the Grecian war of independence, or of discuss-
ing the indefensible methods of warfare emj)loyed
on both sides. I mention these atrocities merely to
call attention to events which largely determined
the response of the United States Govermnent, not
only to the appeal of Greece for sympathetic sup-
port, but to the hostile attitude toward Greece of
the continental monarchies.

In view of the political situation in Europe, the
stand taken by the President, and supported by
Webster, was more than a declaration of sympathy
by our Government for a small nation oppressed by
an autocratic and powerful one. That declaration
was, indeed, outspoken, unequivocal and humani-
tarian. But the opinions expressed by the Presi-
dent had a deeper meaning. They rebuked, and
were intended to rebuke, the Sovereigns of the Al-
lied Powers — commonly called the Holy Alliance —
who had thrown all their moral support in favor
of Turkey and against Greece. The Allied Powers,
dominated by Prussia, Austria and Russia, had
only recently, sitting in congress at Verona, "dis-
couraged, discountenanced, and denounced" the
Greeks for their resistance to Turkish oppression.
Metternich, the famous Austrian statesman and
master of European diplomacy, who dominated the
Holy Alliance, and through it governed Europe,

The Disintegration of an Ideal 243

had said: "Three or four hundred thousand mdi-
viduals hanged, butchered, impaled down there,
hardly count."

In this situation, in the face of the most powerful
nations of Europe, the President of the United
States did not hesitate to take a decidedly antago-
nistic position and to offer the moral support of
the nation to the cause of liberty and human rights.
To appreciate fully the significance of our stand
one must recall, what every schoolboy knows, that
the Holy Alliance was based on the doctrine of the
Divine Right of Kings, just as the German autoc-
racy maintains that doctrine to-day.

In this connection it is curiously interesting to
note the similarity of the sentiments and language
of Francis I., Emperor of Austria, one of the three
chief supporters of the Holy Alliance in 1821, and
of the present German Emperor. Both sovereigns
maintained the doctrine of the Divine Right to rule
and the determination to tolerate no opposition to
the autocratic will. "I want faithful subjects," said
Francis I. "Be such: that is your duty. He who
would serve me must do what I command. He
who cannot do this, or who comes full of new ideas,
may go his way. If he does not, I shall send him."
And in a similar spirit William II., the present
Emperor, said: ''Those who are willing to help
me I heartily welcome whoever they may be: those
who oppose me in this task I will crush." Again:
"There is but one law, and that is my law." And
again: "One only is master within the Empire,

244 The Creed of Deutschtum

and I will tolerate no other."

In accordance with this principle, the allied sov-
ereigns at Laybach in 1821 announced that "use-
ful and necessary changes in legislation and in the
administration of States ought only to emanate
from the free will and intelligent and well-weighed
conviction of those whom God has rendered respon-
sible for power. All that deviates from this line
necessarily leads to disorder, commotion, and evils
far more insupportable than those which they pre-
tend to remedy."

It was on this principle that the continental mon-
archies denounced the Greeks, though the whole
world recoiled from the cruelties they suffered at
the hands of their oppressors, just as the world to-
day recoils from the cruelties suffered by the Bel-
gians and Serbians. Webster, therefore, in pro-
testing against the treatment of Greece by Turkey
and the Allied Powers, directed the main force of
his argument against the principles of the Holy
Alliance. And he brought all the power of his
splendid eloquence to bear to show to the American
people how "utterly hostile" those principles were
"to our own free institutions." The question was
very different from that raised by Monroe in that
part of his message, now known as the Monroe
Doctrine, dealing with the designs of the Holy Al-
liance upon the South American Republics. There
it was a question of direct interference with Re-
publican forms of government and the forcible im-
position of their system of government upon this

The Disintegration of an Ideal 245

hemisphere. This we should regard, he said, as
"an unfriendly disposition toward the United
States."

It was, therefore, solely on the ground of prin-
ciple and not because of any such "unfriendly dis-
position," toward us or infringement of our legal
rights on sea or land, or interference with our com-
merce, that Webster urged that the moral support
of the nation be given to the cause of Greece.

"I wish to take occasion," he said, "of the strug-
gle of an interesting and gallant people in the cause
of liberty and Christianity, to draw the attention
of the House to the circumstances which have ac-
companied that struggle, and to the principles
which appear to have governed the conduct of the
great States of Europe in regard to it; and to the
effects and consequences of these principles upon
the independence of nations, and especially upon
the institutions of free governments."

And referring to the denunciation by the Con-
gress of Verona above mentioned:

We see here, Mr. Chairman, the direct and actual
application of that system which I have attempted to
describe. We see it in the very case of Greece. We
learn, authentically and indisputably, that the allied
powers, holding that all changes in legislation and admin-
istration ought to proceed from Kings alone, were wholly
inexorable to the sufferings of the Greeks and entirely
hostile to their success. Now it is upon this practical
result of the principle of the Continental Powers that I
wish this House to intimate its opinion. The great ques-
tion is a question of principle. Greece is only the signal
instance of the application of that principle. If the

246 The Creed of Deutschtum

principle be right, if we esteem it conformable to the law
of nations, if we have nothing to say against it, or if we
deem ourselves unfit to express an opinion on the subject,
then, of course, no resolution ought to pass. If, on the
other hand, we see in the declaration of the allied powers
jorinciples not only utterly hostile to our own free insti-
tutions, but hostile also to the independence of all nations,
and altogether opposed to the improvement of the con-
dition of human nature ; if, in the instance before us, we
see a most striking exposition and application of those
principles, and if we deem our opinions to be entitled to
any weight in the estimation of mankind, then I think
it is our duty to adopt some such measure as the pro-
posed resolution.

One of the most objectionable principles held by
the allied powers Webster considered to be the
claim of "the right of forcible interference in the
affairs of the States."

Webster's speech is characterized by its lofty tone
of humanitarianism and profound belief in the
principles upon which our nation is founded.
Throughout it there breathes the love of liberty and
of human rights. Self -restrained and without pas-
vsion he boldly takes his stand as the defender of
these ideals, and he would have the nation assert,
without equivocation, the national conscience.
They, the allied nations, had "expressed their opin-
ions," and he would have us express our "different
principles and different sympathies."

It is interesting, too, to note the entire subordi-
nation of selfish, material interest, and technical
legal rights belonging to Americans. His protest
is bf^sed entirely on the broad rights of mankind

The Disintegration of an Ideal 247

and opposition to the oppression of one people by
another.

Webster anticipated the objection — the admoni-
tion which we received in recent days from the
President when we read day by day of the viola-
tion of Belgium — that we should scrupulously re-
main neutral in thought as well as speech, and mind
our own business.

As it is never difficult to recite commonplace remarks
and trite aphorisms, so it may be easy, I am aware, on
this occasion to remind me of the wisdom which dictates
to men a care of their own affairs, and admonishes them,
instead of searching for adventures abroad, to leave other
men's concerns in their own hands. It may be easy to call
this resolution Quixotic, the emanation of a crusading
or propagandist spirit. All this, and more, may be
readily said ; but all this, and more, will not be allowed
to fix a character upon this proceeding until that is
proved which it takes for granted. Let it first be shown
that in this question there is nothing which can affect
the interest, the character, or the duty of this country.
Let it be proved that we are not called upon by either of
these considerations to express an opinion on the subject
to which the resolution relates.

The propriety of a protest he placed upon con-
siderations of our own duty, of our character and
of our own interest. This conception of duty he
returns to again and again; thus in one passage
he said that the measure which he proposed he con-
sidered "due to our own character and called for
by our own duty."

And again he argued:

In my judgment, the subject is interesting to the

-248 The Creed of Deutschtum

people and the Government of this country, and we are
called upon, by considerations of great weight and mo-
ment, to express our opinions upon it. These consid-
erations, I think, spring from a sense of our own duty,
our character, and our own interest. I wish to treat the
subject on such grounds exclusively as are truly Amer-
ican.

But in treating the subject on American grounds
he rested his case on the higher plane of American
ideals.

"Let this be, then," he continued, "and as far as
I am concerned I hope it will be, purely an Amer-
ican discussion; but let it embrace, nevertheless,
everything that fairly concerns America. Let it
comprehend not merely her present advantage but
her permanent interest, her elevated character as
one of the free States of the world, and her duty
toward those great principles which have hitherto
maintained the relative independence of nations,
and which have, more especially, made her what
she is."

It is interesting to note that Webster, a profound
thinker and statesman, by "permanent interest"
had in mind, as he later on argued, not material
interests or legal rights, but the broad interest we
had in resenting the breaking of international law
and interference with the rights of small nations by
great nations.

It is true Webster in arguing from this ground
struck solely at the pretensions of the Holy Al-
liance, which as an alliance not long afterward
came to a timely end. But it is no perversion of his

TJie Disintegration of an Ideal 249

argument to hold, as I shall later point out, that
the principles from which he reasoned are equally
applicable to the policies of "Might flakes Right,"
and "World Empire," and to the events which we
have seen unfold themselves before our eyes to-
daj^ to the consideration of a treaty as a scrap of
paper, the violation of the sovereignty of small
States by a powerful neighbor, the violation of all
the civilized laws of war and humanity, the policy
of "frightfulness" and "terrorism" as a method of
warfare employed to-day as it was by the Turks
against the Greeks, and the general breaking of in-
ternational laws on the plea of "necessity."

Furthermore, two fundamental principles that
underlay the Holy Alliance are fundamental to the
German Government to-day — that of the divine
right of kings and uncompromising hostility to de-
mocracy and to "government of the people, by the
people, and for the people." To these two prin-
ciples can be largely traced the existing "German
militarism" which is responsible for this war and
which the Allies are fighting to overthrow.

A careful study of Webster's attitude of mind,
revealing, as it does, his intense love of liberty, his
profound belief in government by the people, and
his respect for the rights of man, leave no doubt in
the mind that he would be as ready to-day, if he
were alive, to protest against the violation of these
principles as he was against the violation of Grecian
liberty and independence.

The modernness of Webster's thought is brought

250 The Creed of Deutschtum

out vividly by a question which he anticipated —
the same question which we have heard so often
asked when a protest against the violation of Bel-
gium and Germany's inhuman methods of warfare
has been suggested. But the feeble answer given
in these later days falls sadly short of the noble re-
ply with which Webster rebuked his imaginary op-
ponent. This passage deserves to be learned by
every American and indelibly engraved in the con-
science of the nation.

It may, in the next place, be asked, perhaps, supposing,
all this to be true, what can we do? Are we to go to war?
Are we to interfere in the Greek cause, or any other
European cause? Are we to endanger our pacific rela-
tions? No, certainly not. What, then, the question
recurs, remains for us? If we will not endanger our own
peace, if we will neither furnish armies nor navies to the
cause which we think the just one, what is there within our
power?

He then went on to characterize the part which
the imponderable force of public opinion and moral
sentiment plays in restraining and punishing the
violations of human rights — that force which
France and Belgium and England have appealed
in vain to America to bring to the aid of humanity
in this war:

It is already able to oppose the most formidable ob-
stiTjction to the progress of injustice and oppression;
and as it grows more intelligent and more intense, it
will be more and more formidable. It may be silenced by
military power, but it cannot be conquered. It is elastic,
irrepressible, and invulnerable to the weapons of ordinary
warfare. It is that impassable, unextinguishable enemy

The Disintegration of an Ideal 251

of mere violence and arbitrary rule, which, like Milton's
angels.

Vital in every part . . .

Cannot, but by annihilating, die.

Until this be propitiated or satisfied, it is vain for
power to talk either of triumphs or of repose — no matter
what fields are desolated, what fortresses surrendered,
what armies subdued, or what provinces overrun.

Then, after narrating the unhappy events in
Spain:

It is nothing that arrests and confiscation and exe-
cution sweep away the little remnant of national resist-
ance. There is an enemy that still exists to check the
glory of these triumphs. It follows the conqueror back
to the very scene of his ovations ; it calls upon him to take
notice that Europe, though silent, is yet indignant ; it
shows him that the sceptre of his victory is a barren
sceptre; that it shall confer neither joy nor honor, but
shall molder to dry ashes in his grasp. In the midst of
his exultation, it pierces his ear with the cry of injured
justice; it denounces against him the indignation of an
enlightened and civilized age; it turns to bitterness the
cup of his rejoicing, and wounds him with the sting which
belongs to the consciousness of having outraged the
opinion of mankind.

Later on he describes in vivid language and
glowing admiration the splendid resistance of the
Greeks to the powerful hordes of Turkey. But as
we follow his words to-day it is pictures of Belgium
and Serbia that rise before us and intrude them-
selves into our consciousness. Then he returns to
the question. What good will it do to protest?

It may now be asked, perhaps, whether the expressioil
of our own sympathy, and that of the country, may do

252 The Creed of Deutschtum

them good? I hope it may. It may give them courage
and spirit, it may assure them of pubHc regard, teach
them that they are not wholly forgotten by the civilized
world, and inspire them with constancy in the pursuit
of their great end. At any rate, Sir, it appears to me
that the measure which I have proposed is due to our own
character and called for by our own duty. When we shall
have discharged that duty we may leave the rest to the
disposition of Providence.

THE CONTRAST

Nearly one hundred years have gone by since
the days of Monroe and Webster — since they ut-
tered their protests to the most powerfid nations
of Europe. The policy of our nation has changed !

In 1821 we were a homogeneous nation imbued
with common ideals and political beliefs, and with
a uniform sentiment of American nationality. Ra-
cially we were a unity. To-day we are a polyglot
nation speaking many tongues. We have lost the
homogeneity of a single race. The people of many
nations, each with different political traditions, af-
filiations, and sentiments, have been cast into the
melting pot, and as yet a single national conscience
has not been evolved.

It is only to be expected, therefore, that follow-
ing the great invasion by immigration of all the
peoples of the world to this country, our common
national conscience should have become disinte-
grated. New forces have come into play to which

The Disintegration of an Ideal 253

our early national ideals have yielded themselves.
Americans, apparently, have thought it wise to com-
promise with these forces. These facts may explain
the change that has taken place in our national at-
titude and policy toward certain foreign questions.
Whether or not they justify it must be left to the
judgment of each individual.

Though the policy of the nation has changed, yet
history in many respects is repeating itself. Two
powerful empires of central Europe have overrid-
den the rights of two little States. In the one case,
Serbia; by a preconcerted arrangement they de-
manded the right to overrule the sovereignty of
that State and dictate the administration of its in-
ternal affairs. Indeed, there is every reason to be-
lieve, on the basis of historical evidence come to
light, that these powers conspired to extend their
empires over this and other small Balkan States to
the iEgean Sea.

In the other case, Belgium, one of these empires,
not only disregarded the accepted morality of in-
ternational law, treated a treaty as a "scrap of
paper," but by military force invaded that peace-
ful neutral State which had given no offense what-
ever— "hacked its way through." There was no
question that a "wrong" was done, for it was ad-
mitted officially by the Chancellor. The other na-
tions of the world, therefore, did not have to wait
for evidence to see on which side the wrong lay.

In both cases atrocities were committed compar-
able in every way to those which the Turks had

254 The Creed of Deutschtum

committed in 1821-1823, and which in a large meas-
ure led to the moral stand taken by our Govern-
ment in 1823. Indeed, the Turks are now commit-
ting equal atrocities against the Armenians, appar-
ently with the moral support of the Central Em-
pires, just as the atrocities against the Greeks in
their revolution were supported by the Holy Al-
liance. In truth German publicists have resented
any interference by outside nations, claiming the
Turks are within their rights in taking any effective
measures against the Armenians.

The contrast between the policy of our Govern-
ment in 1823 and that of 1914 is sharply drawn.
In 1823, though a young and weak nation, the
Administration did not hesitate to take a definite
stand in opposition to the most powerful Govern-
ments of Europe, and officially extend the sympa-
thy of the nation and its moral support to an op-
pressed people. This sympathetic interest was not
confined to the Administration, but found collec-
tive expression in public meetings throughout the
nation, through organized associations and other
ways.

In 1914 the Government of the United States,
grown to be not only the most powerful of the neu-
tral nations in this war, but one of the most power-
ful of all the nations of the world, maintained stud-
ied reticence and almost ostentatiously adhered to
neutrality of sentiment. Even in the Congress,
where one would have thought differences of opin-
ion would have found expression, no one felt called

The Disintegration of an Ideal 255

upon to take a different view. The President had
admonished the people to be "neutral in thought
and speech." But there was and could be no neu-
trality seeing that each individual had his own moral
conscience in his own keeping. It was different
with the official conscience of the nation, which was
in the keeping of the President, and he held it safely
under lock and key; or, to express it slightly dif-
ferently, he closed the lid of the box upon it and sat
on the lid. Congress, perhaps, might have forced
the President off his seat on the lid by taking ac-
tion in the form of a sympathetic protest against
the invasion of Belgium and the German campaign
of f rightfulness, just as Monroe and Webster had
protested in 1823. But Congress was pliant and
timid, and official neutrality of thought and speech
was maintained.

In the country at large, though the press and the
great majority of citizens in a whole-hearted way
warmlj^ espoused the side of the oppressed nations,
the sentiment was not mobilized by public meet-
ings and organized bodies and other ways into col-
lective expression. It was, therefore, pragmatically
valueless. It was the sentiment of Americans, and
had not become American sentiment. It is only the
mobilized or official sentiment that counts in in-
ternational relations. There were none, indeed, to
lead in the mobilization of public opinion into a
concrete force. And though many and influential
citizens expressed through letters to the press and
public addresses the sentiment of the country, with

256 The Creed of Deutschtum

a few notable exceptions there was a general silent
acquiescence in the official attitude adopted by the
Administration — in the principle of official Gov-
ernmental silence. But this acquiescence did not
wholly mean agreement or final acceptance. There
was a large quota of Americans who believed and
still believe that our Government should have pro-
tested in 1914 as in 1823.

Nevertheless, though history is repeating itself,
one thing stands out very clearly, and that is that
the American nation and Government no longer
feels called upon to give expression to any opinion
or sentiment that we may entertain upon the great
moral and political principles involved in interna-^
tional affairs. Nor does our Government any
longer consider that the "interest" of America is
involved in the possible eventual supremacy of prin-
ciples of government absolutely hostile to our own.
Here, indeed, is a great change since 1823.

Objection may be raised to contrasting the Amer-
ican policy of 1914-1915 with that of 1823 on the
ground that conditions and the questions involved
in the former period were very different from those
of to-day. But this is to take a very narrow view.
It is to mistake a particular policy of a nation for
the principles by which the policy is actuated. The
interference of the Allied Monarchies of 1821 with
constitutional government wherever established was
only a particular application of their principles and
a matter of expediency. This Webster well pointed
out in the case of the Greek revolution. It was

The Disintegration of an Ideal 257

when they attempted to mipose their principles and
their pohtical doctrines on the rest of the world
that we took issue with their application. And like-
wise we may protest against the imposition of the
principles of the present Dual Alliance upon the
rest of the world if we feel called upon to do so.

Regardless of political policy, the principles of
the Holy Alliance were notoriously so opposed to
those of our institutions that Monroe in his now
famous message warned those nations not to at-
tempt to establish their system of government on
this continent. Their principles, aside from any
particular mode by which they were put into prac-
tice, were entirely opposed to the rights of man-
kind, to the principles of democracy, to the rights
of other nations, to humanitarianism, to govern-
ment by the people.

Likewise, looked at in this broad way, it is gen-
erally conceded that the principles on which the
German empire is governed and the doctrines which
publicly have been avowed by that nation, by its
publicists, its writers, its scholars, its press, its
statesmen, its military men, and its Emperor, are
as equally hostile to these other principles, and
therefore to American institutions.

So much has been written on this matter, and
the large mass of data accumulated substantiat-
ing this view is so readily accessible, that it would
be reiteration or useless to go over it again here.
It is sufficient to say that the principles and doc-
trines of "Might Makes Right," ''World Empire

258 The Creed of Deutschtum

or Downfall," "The Morality of War," "the duty
of a strong nation to wage war and to extend do-
minion over weaker nations," "the duty to extend
German Kultur over the whole world"; "the prin-
ciple of a chosen people," of govermnent by an au-
tocratic class, and that of the "Divine Right" to
rule, the denial of representative government ex-
cept in name ; the principle of militarism by v/hich a
military caste is elevated to a position of privilege,
and by which not only the democracy of the Ger-
man nation but the world is to be crushed if it does
not yield to German ambition; the principles of
rule based on armed force, of lese-majeste, of the
denial of freedom of the press and of speech, of the
right to wage war by the principle of frightfulness
without regard to international law, not to speak
of much else — these principles and doctrines are
wholly hostile to those principles upon which our
Government is founded. This is only a statement
of fact which the most neutral and indifferent per-
son may state wdthout any committal of opinion as
to the merits of the two systems of government.
The difference between the two sets of principles,
or national ideals, is the difference not simply be-
tween democracy and autocracy, but autocracy of
a kind so unique in principle, so barbaric in meth-
ods, that it can scarcely be summarized in the few
lines I have used. The Belgian and Serbian in-
vasions, the general methods of warfare, and the
planning for and the instigation of this war are
only special applications of these principles, and it

The Disintegration of an Ideal 259

is to these applications that the question relates.

If all this is admitted, then it follows that the sit-
uation in 1823 was not fundamentally different
from what it is in 1915. And, as with the Holy
Alliance, when the Dual Alliance attempts to ap-
ply its principles and its political doctrines to the
rest of the world we have a right, at least, to take
issue with their application.

In this presentation of the American ideal of
1823, and in contrasting with it the policy and at-
titude of our Government in 1915, we can see to
what an extent that ideal has become disintegrated.
By the contrast we can see how far we have trav-
eled since 1823. It is obvious that in 1914-1915 we
have made a complete somersault in our policy.

The ideal of 1823 may still persist in the older
Eastern communities of the nation, but events have
shown that even here it has ceased to be an all- abid-
ing, inspiring creed. Nor does it permeate the na-
tional consciousness as a whole. The indifference
and apathy of public opinion in the country at
large, particularly in the West, grown up without
traditions, show that so far as this ideal still sur-
vives it is no longer a living, vital force in our na-
tional political thought and a trait of the national
personality. Rather it has degenerated into an aca-
demic opinion deprived of the vitality that springs
from intensity of interest. It is difficult to formu-
late the nature of the change, but, psychologically
speaking, its emotional interest has been displaced
and attached to material and local affairs. Consid-

260 The Creed of Deutschtum

erations of self-interest, self -development, self-ag-
grandizement, self-concern, and self-safety have
absorbed the interest. As defenders of humanitari-
anism have we not become a "slob" nation? Sym-
pathy with suffering? Yes, in plenty. But na-
tional political resentment at the cause of the suf-
fering— no. It is noteworthy that not a single
leader has come forward to mobilize in practical
form into an organized force such resentment as
exists. Blase to humanitarian appeals, to political
oppression, barbarities, and injustice, we are con-
tent to follow along "the easier way" and justify
to ourselves our course by the fact that the national
conscience is no longer a unity. And so those con-
siderations— "a sense of our own duty, our char-
acter and our own interest" — ^which in the former
period determined us to express boldly our opinion
without fear of consequences and in defiance of the
allied nations of that time, no longer have weight
and no longer govern the thought of the nation.

And yet when we think of this radical departure
we cannot help recalling that in 1823, a small and
weak nation that we were, the great monarchies of
Europe cared little for our opinions — for either our
moral support or our moral reprobation — but they
had a high respect for what militarj^ action we
might take. In 1914, when we had become a large
and powerful nation, those same monarchies or
their successors had a high respect for our opinions
and little or none for our military effectiveness.
The potentiality of our moral support, a force

The Disintegration of an Ideal 261

which issues only from character, self-respect, high
ideals, and assertion of convictions steadfastly held
— what Bismarck so highly valued as the "impon-
derables"— was sought by every nation engaged in
this conflict.

In 1823 we spoke out without any hope that our
moral support would do any material good, but
nevertheless we spoke because it might give "cour-
age and spirit" to the oppressed and because we
owed it as a duty to ourselves and our character.
That duty done, we could leave "the rest to the dis-
position of Providence." It was one of the most
noble acts in our history.

To-day, when the early expression of our opinion
in condemning the violation of a small and helpless
nation, the violation of the rules of civilized war-
fare and international law by every sort of atrocity,
and the barbarous treatment of civil populations
might have done some material good in mitigating
the horrors of war, we refused, like Holland, Den-
mark, and Sweden, and other small nations, from
timidity to speak. We do not consider that we owe
it to the oppressed to inspire them, if we could, with
"courage and spirit," nor that we owe it to our-
selves, to our character, to assert our convictions.

And yet again, as we look back to the times of
1823, there can be no one who does not thrill with
pride when he reads the noble protest of our little
nation of that time. Is there any one who is not
glad that our predecessors took the stand that they
did and spoke the words that expressed the con-

262 The Creed of Deutschtum

science of the nation and brought cheer to the
hearts of the oppressed? Is there any one who is
not glad that our country condemned the brutal
application of principles utterly hostile to those
upon which our Republic is founded and which vio-
lated the rights of the Little Peoples? Is there any
American who is not proud of the Administration
of Monroe? Looking forward into the future we
are forced to ask ourselves whether we shall be
again regarded in the world of nations with that
respect for our character which we had attained as
the exponent of humanitarian ideals ; whether that
moral greatness of our country which once was
ours, and because of which our sympathy was
sought, shall not have vanished. When we lose our
character we lose our force as an "imponderable"
to uplift the violated nations from the miseries of
injustice, of oppression, and of war. As an impon-
derable force in the world the nation once was
mighty for good.

It remains to be seen whether our timidity, our
fear to follow the path which Monroe and Webster
boldly took, has not weakened our character as a
nation and will not earn the reprobation of those
who come after us. Will the generations that are
to come look back to 1914-15 with that pride with
which we to-day look back to the Administration
of 1823?

THE WAK— A TEST OF THE GERMAN
THEORY OF MILITARISM

A PAPER PRESENTED AT THE CONFERENCE ON THE
PROBLEMS AND LESSONS OF THE WAR" HELD AT CLARK
UNIVERSITY, DECEMBER, 1915.

THE WAR— A TEST OF THE GERMAN
THEORY OF MILITARISM

THE term "militarism" has different mean-
ings for different people. With some its
signification relates merely to the size of
the army and navy maintained by a nation ;
with others to the motives, attitude of mind and po-
litical policies which are behind the military estab-
lishments, and the purposes for which they are to
be employed. So that in this view one nation might
maintain a very small military force and yet its
Government rest upon and be actuated by "mili-
tarism"; while another, the United States, for ex-
ample, or Great Britain, might maintain a very
great military or naval establishment without ex-
hibiting militarism. We must not confuse mili-
tarism, understood in this sense, with the American
idea of "preparedness" against war — a policy of
national defense which is now in the public mind
in this country. The two have nothing in common
excepting that they make use of military organi-
zation as a means to an end. It is the difference
in the ends sought that distinguishes the two.

However militarism in general be defined, our
thesis requires only that we deal with the Geraian
theory of militarism. There is a very general con-
sensus of opinion throughout the world, outside,

265

266 The Creed of Deutschtum

of course, of the Geraian Empire, as to the char-
acter of German militarism and the purposes which
it has been meant to subserve. I believe I am right
in saying that it is commonly agreed that the fun-
damental principle of German militarism is that
the stability, power, and will of the nation rest on
armed force ; and therefore that it is to such armed
force that the Imperial Government looks both to
maintain itself within the empire and to enforce its
will, its "Kultur," its ideals, and its policies upon
other nations without the empire.

More concretely and concisely, German milita-
rism in its external relations may be defined as the
idea of extending the nation's trade and system of
government by force. It would be easy to cite
from numerous authorities to support this inter-
pretation of German militarism.

Militarism thus becomes something much more
than a system of defense against encroachments
from within and without— it is a mode of, and or-
ganization for, attack in the enforcement of pro-
gressive policies, of national growth, and of the
will of the State, whatever direction these may
take. It has been even the boast, not only of the
German Emperor but of a host of German publi-
cists, that by the potential power of its army Ger-
many has maintained peace itself between the great
powers of Europe during the past twenty-five
years.

With the questionable validity of this claim I am
not here concerned, any more than with the proph-

Test of German Theory of Militarism 267

ecy of the Emperor in 1902, when he said: "The
powerful German Army guarantees the peace of
Europe." The irony of Aug. 1, 1914, makes such
claims tragic. ]My only motive in citing them is to
summarize the functions which militarism has un-
dertaken to perform so that when we come to weigh
its claims with its achievements we may judge it.

With militarism as a principle of government
within the German Empire I have nothing to do.
Though it may be a system for the enforcement
of the will of the State against the will of the peo-
ple, if the German people are satisfied with gov-
ernment resting on the principle of armed force,
it is their own affair and concerns them alone. I
will content myself with pointing out that that
principle necessarily means autocracy based on
armed force, and is utterly irreconcilable with and
hostile to that other principle of government which
rests upon the moral force of public opinion con-
trolled and checked by constitutional guarantees
to the individual of "natural" and "inherent" and
"inalienable rights." And yet, if time permitted,
the thesis would be an interesting one to defend
that even within the German body politic milita-
rism, like all other human forces acting upon human
beings, is bound eventually to excite and bring
into activity other forces antagonistic to itself and
with which it sooner or later must come into con-
flict. And this has happened. The extraordinary
growth of the German democracy, to say nothing
of the numerous political parties that have sprung

268 The Creed of Deutschtum

up in opposition to the Government, must be
looked upon as the necessary reaction of human
wills to an autocratic will attempting to impose it-
self by force. However that may be, it is of the
theory of militarism applied to international rela-
tions that the present war can alone be regarded
as a test, and it is this aspect of the theory that I
propose to consider.

We need not concern ourselves with the origin
and historical evolution of German militarism. It
is sufficient to accept it as it is found in its final
form and as it has manifested itself during the
last, say, twenty years — since 1896, the date of
the Boer war.

The best exposition of German militarism (com-
monly called "Prussian") is to be found in concrete
applications of its principles, and no more excellent
example of applied militarism is to be found than
in the attitude of Germany in the Serbian crisis in
July, 1914. I trust I may be permitted to cite
that incident in spite of the danger of introducing
into this discussion controversial matters outside
the main thesis.

Serbia had been charged with being guilty of
offenses against Austria. Germany accordingly
gave Austria assurances, secretly, that the latter
should have a "free hand" in dealing with Serbia
as she saw fit, regardless of the interests of Russia
or the sovereign rights of Serbia, and that Ger-
many would back her up with her army, if neces-
sary. To all expostulation on the part both of

Test of German Theory of Militarism 269

Serbia and the other powers Germany and Aus-
tria turned a deaf ear. A settlement of Austria's
demands — all of which were yielded but two and
Serbia offered to refer these to The Hague — by
mediation, by conference of the powers, by con-
versations was refused. German militarism had
the power, so it felt, to enforce its demands against
Serbia, on the one hand, and against any outside in-
terference by any power or combination of powers,
on the other. ^lilitarism desired, of course, to "lo-
calize" the conflict, for in that case its task would be
easy ; but if the conflict could not be localized, mili-
tarism had the power any way, so it believed, and
was going to gain its ends by force and would ac-
cept no other methods, no matter what the conse-
quences. Its ulterior object, it is generally con-
ceded, was to extend German hegemony and trade
as an appanage of empire through the Balkans to
the iEgean Sea, Constantinople, and the Persian
Gulf by force.

Militarism refused to take into consideration the
rights of a sovereign nation, the "natural" and "in-
herent rights" of mankind, the political interests
of other European powers, racial sympathies and
prejudices, the traits, instincts, passions, and as-
pirations of other peoples, and, above all, mutual
international moral obligations by which one na-
tion should respect the rights and interests of every
other. Its sole function was to gain the ends of
its own nation by force, and, relying upon a sup-
posed fear of its own armed power, it refused until

270 The Creed of Deutschtum

it was too late every other mode of settlement. That
was the method of militarism. Necessarily mili-
tarism, to be efficient, requires a liighly developed
condition of preparedness for war. And this the
German State has provided, first, in a scheme of
offensive and defensive alliances; and, second, in a
more efficiently organized military machine than
the world has ever before seen and, for that mat-
ter, than the world ever dreamed of or thought
possible. So that if militarism when tested shall
be found not to have been a success, its failure
, cannot be laid to inefficiency of preparedness.

At this point the difference between the Amer-
ican idea of preparedness and the German idea
becomes apparent. The American idea is prepar-
edness for defense against attack.

The German idea includes this, but adds to it
preparedness for defense of imperial intentions to
extend German trade, German thought, and a sys-
tem of government throughout the world by force
— world empire or downfall, it has been called.

The underlying theory of militarism of course
has been that, if all the resources of a nation are
organized into a military system and that system
is developed to its very highest efficiency in every
one of its multiplicity of parts, it will be so power-
ful as to be irresistible against any combination of
powers likely within human foresight to be brought
against it; and that therefore no Power or likely
combination of Powers will dare to attack it, on
the one hand, and, on the other, it can enforce its

Test of German Theory of Militarism 271

will on the world.

As opposed to this we have the rival theory that
under modern conditions of civilization, whatever
may have been the case in the ancient Roman world,
no one or two or three States can dominate the
whole world by force; that any State that disre-
gards the natural and inlierent rights of sovereign
States and fails to show "a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind" is bound to awaken into ac-
tivity the latent moral and physical forces of the
world; that aggressive actions threatening to ob-
tain unjust advantage by force stimulate resist-
ance, and that sooner or later, under the influence
of public opinion, combinations of forces come into
being which are too powerful to be overcome by
any single power or possible alliance of powers.

A perfect analogy may be found in the great
political conflict which of recent years agitated this
country — the conflict between organized industries
and organized capital on the one hand and public
opinion on the other. Great aggregations of cap-
ital and industrial corporations, grown arrogant
with power, undertook to extend their systems in
disregard of the laws that protected the natural
and inherent rights of individuals and lesser or-
ganizations, and to take what they wanted by the
power which they wielded through their mighty
militant organizations. In the pursuance of this
policy there failed to be shown "a decent respect
to the opinions of mankind." It was the principle
of militarism adopted by industrialism and applied

272 The Creed of Deutschtum

by industrial force. Such overriding of the rights
of others necessarily created an uprising of public
opinion which gathered to itself the political powers
of the nation and the States. These were more
mighty than any that industrialism could mobilize.
The result was such as might have been expected,
and industrial militarism was overthrown.

As tested by the results of the conflict, indus-
trial militarism proved itself a failure. Let us see
how far German State militarism has proved suc-
cessful as tested by this war. We are not con-
cerned, of course, with the moral aspects of the
question — ^with such questions as right and justice
— but only with the pragmatic question of success
or failure. If militarism can point to success, it
can at least find one defense on the ground of
necessity and expediency.

Has German Militarism been successful?

When one thinks of the great military successes
achieved by the German armies thus far in this war,
of the large regions of conquered territory in Bel-
gium, France, Russia, and Serbia, one is prompted
offhand to answer in the affirmative. But deeper
consideration, I think, shows this view to be a su-
perficial one. None of the armies of the great bel-
ligerents on either side has been destroyed. They
all remain intact, and until the armies have been
eliminated as effective forces, or their Governments
rendered incapable by exhaustion of using them for
further effective offense or resistance, it is idle
to talk of victory for one side or the other. Against

Test of German Theory of Militarism 273

the occupation of territory by the armies of the
Central Empires may be set ojft':

1. The complete failure of their plan of cam-
paign, designed years in advance, and to carry
out which the German militaiy organization had
been perfected. So far from France being crushed
and "bled white" by German preparedness, the
German armies, after an early retreat, are held in
their trenches, unable to move on the west, and on
the east apparently are incapable of further ad-
vance.

2. The complete impotence of the German Navy,
the bottling up of her merchant marine, the de-
struction of her commerce, and consequent impair-
ment of her industries.

3. The loss of all Germany's colonies.

4. The encircling of Germany by an iron naval
and military ring from which she cannot break out.

5. The indefinite isolation of Germany from
commerce with over-sea nations and the continuous
paralyzing of her industries by England's navy
until England is satisfied with the terms of peace;
thus probably enabling England to dictate terms.

6. The possible restriction, after the war, of Ger-
many's commerce by preferential tariffs, mercan-
tile port restrictions and other measures on the
part of England and her colonies, France and Rus-
sia, against Germany and Austria.

These are offsets to the ten-itories conquered by
Germany and Austria. In view of them the final
possession of the territories now held will be de-

274 The Creed of Deutschtum

termined by considerations governing the urgency
or necessities for peace and not by the fact of tem-
porary occupancy by force. But, however that
may be, after giving the very maximum of weight
to the initial territorial gains justly to be credited
to militarism, including those in Serbia, let us look
at the other side of the ledger and see what ma-
terial and moral forces its very successes have called
into being to threaten its supremacy.

By its own very example, the object lesson it
has given, it has not only taught other nations the
possibilities of military efficiency but, as a neces-
sary reaction, has directly excited them to imitate
the machine which German Militarism invented and
to rival its standards. The results have been:

1. That France, at first half prepared, has in
self-preservation developed and organized a mil-
itary machine which, in proportion to its size, is
the equal of Germany's. For this time was the sole
requisite and this was gained when the German
war machine was checked and held immobile after
the first six weeks of war.

2. That the English nation, hitherto pursuing a
policy opposed to the maintenance of large military
land forces, has been stimulated to create for the
purposes of this war a great military, industrial,
and fighting machine which soon will be equal in
efficiency to, and approximate in numbers of men,
that of Germany. But, more important of all from
the point of view of the validity of the theory of
militarism, there have been evoked, as a reaction

Test of German Theory of Militarism 275

to the threatening oppression of militarism, a so-
lidified British public opinion and a national con-
sciousness that not only accept military prepared-
ness on land as a requisite for national security
against force, but are inspired by a national will
to destroy the militarism of German autocracy.

3. We are too far removed from Russia to judge
the conditions there existing, but it is probably safe
to assume that Russia, with her armies still intact,
and taught by reverses, is reacting as England and
France have done.

4. Even the United States has not remained
quiescent. The thought of the nation has reacted
to the object lesson of this war, and public opin-
ion, as a counterforce, is fast being mobilized into
a national will to oppose the threatening aggres-
sions of militarism by a preparedness to meet the
attacks of organized force with organized force.

5. But beyond these reactions, resulting in the
mobilization of moral and physical forces against
militarism, there have been other moral reactions
of great portent. Without undertaking to pass
judgment in a discussion of this kind on the rights
and wrongs of the cause for which the belligerents
of each side are contending, the lamentable fact
still remains that the hatred and animosities that
have been created in one people for another will
prove to be both moral and industrial losses com-
parable to the loss of provinces.

There is another world condition which can be
justly attributed to German Militarism and which

276 The Creed of Deutschtum

should be taken into consideration in the test of
its success or failure as a policy of government. I
refer to the world-wide hostility to and dislike of
Germany and her sj^stem of government which
now, it must be acknowledged, permeates almost
all nations. Here, again, I wish to emphasize that
I am not concerned with the rightness or wi'ong-
ness, the justice or injustice, of this attitude of
mind. I am dealing only with the psychological
fact as determined by observation and of common
acceptance.

Although this world attitude of mind has been
brought to a culmination by the war and by con-
temporary studies of the German State forced into
the focus of interest by the problems raised by the
war, its origin can be traced to a succession of
events, or better termed, peAaps, "crises," begin-
ning at least twenty years ago. It has therefore
been of gradual growth. Let me briefly sketch its
histoiy. We need not go further back than 1896,
although it would be a serious omission to overlook
the formation of the Dual Alliance in 1879, made
into a Triple Alliance in 1883 by the union of Italy.
For this alliance created a fear of Germany, and
as a necessaiy reaction called forth the dual Fran-
co-Russian alliance in 1891, to become the Triple
Entente in 1904 and 1907 by "understandings"
between England, France, and Russia. Potential
force awakens distrust and creates preparations to
use counterforce.

In 1896 the celebrated so-called Kruger tele-

Test of German Theory of Militarisin 277

gram of the Kaiser stirred the resentment of the
English nation, even to the mobilization of her
fleet, and set the people thinking. Suspicions of
Germany's intentions became rife, and were kept
alive during the next ten years by Germany's am-
bitions to wrest the supremacy of the seas from
England; so that in 1908 the Emperor felt con-
strained to give out his famous London Telegraph
interv'iew in the hope to appease them. But the
fear of German Militarism had taken deep root
in the national consciousness of England and
haimted her statesmen. Thus the germs of hos-
tility to Gennany were planted in the English
mind.

In 1897 the act of German militarism that seized
Kiao-Chau by force, in disregard of the sovereignty
of China, shocked the public opinion of the world.

In 1898, in Manila Bay, the German Admiral
Diederichs brought Gennany to the brink of war
with the United States, and the Gennan Govern-
ment attempted to form a European coalition
against the United States for the purpose of inter-
vening in our war with Spain. Though Dewey,
supported by British ships under Captain Chiches-
ter, thwarted the scheme of the German Admiral,
and the British Cabinet blocked the designs of the
German Government, the seeds of a public opinion
hostile to Germany were sown in the United States
by these episodes, to germinate later in widespread
suspicions of a German design to test the Monroe
Doctrine.

278 The Creed of Deutschtum

In 1905 a diplomatic controversy with Germany
over Morocco" left France humiliated after the cap-
ture of Algeciras, with the resignation of Delcasse
forced under the threat of war by Germany; Ger-
many gained a point by militarism, but strength-
ened the entente of France with England against
a common foe. Thus in France new seeds of hos-
tility were sown by militarism.

In 1908 it was Russia's turn, when Germany,
in disregard of both the Treaty of Berlin and the
Treaty of London in 1871, compelled Russia by
the threat of the sword to back down and assent
to the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by
Austria. And Russia announced, "Never again!"

Then in 1911 came the crisis of Agadir, when
Germany sent the Panther to that port and threat-
ened to interfere for the second time by force with
France in Morocco, and nearly brought on a Eu-
ropean war. Though the German militarism
backed down before the power of the combined
fleets of France and England, it left increased feel-
ings of hostility to Germany behind.

And so, whatever be the rights and the wrongs
of the successive controversies in these crises, there
has gradually been incubating for years in the
world-consciousness an attitude of mind hostile to
German militarism, and this has burst into full
ripeness under the heat of resentment for wrongs
committed against humanity and civilization dur-
ing the present war. I have passed over, of course,
a large number of co-operating happenings, such

Test of German Theory of Militarism 279

as the German Emperor's appeal to Mohanmiedan-
ism ill 1898 and 1905, the mihtant naval program
of 1897, the Venezuelan episode in which Roose-
velt thwarted Gennany's aggi'ession against the
Monroe Doctrine in 1902, the Casablanca affair in
1908, etc. I have selected only the more critical
energizing causes of world hostility.

In view of these critical events, so far from Ger-
many having kept the peace of Europe by the
power of its anny during the past twenty-five
years, as has so often been proclaimed, she has,
besides robbing China of a province in 1897, nearly
precipitated war by the aggressive actions of her
militarism on five different occasions: once in 1896
with England, twice with the United States (in
1898 and 1902), twice with France, in 1905 and
in 1911, and once with Russia in 1908. And finally,
by common consent, German Militarism incited the
world cataclysm of 1914.

It is not given to any one to prophesy the final
outcome of this war, but we can at least say this,
that, whatever it may be, it is not conceivable that
the successes of German militarism can be a recom-
pense for its moral and material losses, and that it
will not be left in a relatively far weaker condition
for offense than before the war. Whatever may
be the final result as determined by the terms of
peace, German militarism at the end of the war
will not only not have succeeded in gaining its long-
planned for ends of achieving its ambitions by force,
but will have called into being a combination of op-

280 The Creed of Deutschtum

posing forces far more powerful than its own.

The Central Powers will find themselves sur-
rounded by hostile powers not one of which will be
more exhausted than Germany herself.

There will have been created in each of the greater
allied nations — France, England, Russia* and
Italy — a military organization, modeled after the
German pattern, fully equipped and prepared and
coiximanding all the mobilized industrial resources
of the nation.

German Militarism will have awakened m every
nation, including the United States, a complete
understanding of the forces with which it will have
to deal in the future — ^an understanding that was
previously lacking — ^and will have created a pre-
paredness by the great powers against attack which
will guarantee that none can be taken unawares;
will make another invasion impossible, and military
threats impotent.

In other words, it will have created a world con-
dition, probably with groups of offensive and de-
fensive alliances, in view of which no nation, and
no alliance of nations, can hope to aggressively
enforce its policies against a great power by mil-
itary force.

In other words, German Militarism, by its poten-
tial 'power and aggressive tactics, has called into
being, as it was bound in time to do, forces more

* The sudden collapse of Russia from internal revolution could not,
of course, be foreseen at this time (December, 1915) nor can we now
(January, 1917) see what the final fate of Russia is to be.

Test of German Theory of Militarism 281

powerful than itself.

By the test of this war, then, as I view the case,
GeiTnan Militarism has failed as a theory of em-
pire. In this failure have we not the most power-
ful motive for an international court to enforce
peace ?

A WORLD CONSCIOUSNESS AND
FUTURE PEACE

AN ADDRESS BEFORE THE CONCORDIA ASSOCIATION
OF JAPAN, AT TOKYO^ JUNE 13, 1916.

A WORLD CONSCIOUSNESS AND
FUTURE PEACE

THE INDIVIDUAL CONSCIOUSNESS

THE newer Western psychology is giving
us a deeper insight into the human mind
than was possible by the older psychology.
It is laying bare the hidden yearnings and
aspirations and strivings of human beings w'hether
as individuals, or collectively as families, civic com-
munities or nations. And therefore it enables us
to discover the real, the true motives which, under-
lying the superficial motives and apparent motives,
determine human conduct, whether that conduct be
an individual striving to accomplish his ambition,
or a nation striving for World Empire.

This newer Western psychology is teaching us
that the older psychology, the academic psychology
of the universities is, as our great and lamented
William James aptly expressed it, but the clanging
of brass cymbals — ^much noise but without real
meaning. The academic psychology is superficial
in that it does not touch the profounder motives
and mechanisms of human nature.

If we would understand the human mind we must

285

286 The Creed of Deutschtum

dive beneath the surface of consciousness, beneath
the momentary ebulhtions of thought. These, we
ai*e learning, are but the superficial, phenomenal
and momentarily fragmentary manifestations of a
larger and profounder consciousness. The teach-
ings of modern investigations, and of our Western
philosophical thought which those investigations
have stimulated, is to regard our conscious thought
as only a superficial consciousness and but a frag-
ment of a larger mind which we term the subcon-
scious or unconscious mind. As an English student,
the late Frederick Myers, in his studies of "Human
Personality" has expressed it, our thoughts and
impulses at any given moment are but uprushes
from this larger reservoir of consciousness. And,
therefore, if we would discover the motives and
springs to human action, the components and real-
ities of human personalitj'- we must seek them by
exploring not the superficial consciousness but be-
low its threshold in the great, underlying conscious-
ness and primitive inborn instincts of each individ-
ual. In this underlying subconsciousness, in this
larger mind we find the solution of the riddle of
personality and, more pragmatically important,
the solution of the problems of what we may call
the collective consciousness of communities.

By collective consciousness I mean, speaking
generally, that unity of thought, tliose common
ideals and that common will which take possession
of the soul of a people — whether of small commu-
nities or of nations. Just as there is a personal

A World Consciousness and Future Peace 287

consciousness peculiar to the individual alone, so
there is a larger family consciousness, a community
consciousness, a civic consciousness and a national
consciousness shared in common by the members
of the group.

The larger subconscious mind can be reached by
various devices: for instance, by putting ourselves
in a state of deep revery or profound contempla-
tion— that is, abstracted from all awareness of the
immediate environment. Then there wells up a
wealth of images and emotions and thoughts; and
memories reaching, perhaps, far back into the past,
and knowledge of the previously unknown. And
of all this subconscious knowledge in our ordinary
state of mind we were profoundly ignorant. But
now we may see translucently, with almost a su-
pernatural clearness and brightness of vision, what
before was obscure or hidden. Thus to my way of
thinking modern Western psychology and philos-
ophy are reaching a point of approachment with
Eastern philosophy, for it would seem to me, that
it was this same subconscious mind that Buddha
probably reached by profound contemplation. It
is only a question of interpretation. Indeed, some
Western thinkers, like Frederick Myers, would
bring this great subconscious mind into close rela-
tion with a transcendental cosmic consciousness of
which perhaps the individual consciousness is but
one focus of intensity — a sort of vortex in a uni-
versal consciousness, or the energy of the Universe.

But we need not enter into that larger meta-

288 The Creed of Deutschtum

physical question which is far beyond my purpose.
I want rather to treat of human personahty and
its ethical and pragmatic bearing upon individual
and collective conduct. What then is the great
subconscious mind that plays so large a part in
personality?

It is impossible for me in such a brief address
as this to treat this great subject with any fullness
and you will not expect me, or indeed wish me,
to do so. I should tire you if I did. It is indeed
the great problem of the future. As M. Bergson,
the French philosopher, has recently said: "To ex-
plore the most sacred depths of the unconscious, to
labor in what I have just called the subsoil of con-
sciousness, that will be the principal task of psy-
chology in the century that is opening. I do not
doubt that wonderful discoveries await it there, as
important, perhaps, as have been in the preceding
centuries the discoveries of the physical and natural
sciences. That at least is the promise which I make
for it, that is the wish that in closing I have for
it."

I shall little more than touch upon it, sufficiently
only to elucidate the main subject of my addi-ess.

Personality as Evolved by the Creative Force of
the Experiences of Life

In this great underlying subsoil of consciousness
are to be found the memories of a vast mass of ex-
periences of life, extending, we may almost say,

A World Consciousness and Future Peace 289

from the cradle to the grave. Most of them are
l)eyoiid voluntary recall as memory. By the tenn
"experiences of life" you must understand all oiu*
conscious experiences of both our outer and inner
life, our conscious experiences with the external
world of men and things about us and oin* inner
thoughts — our soul's thoughts. The subconscious
thus includes the deposited experiences not only
of our ephemeral everyday life, but of our whole
acquired education, acquired from childhood to the
grave — our pedagogical, our social, our religious,
our ethical, our civic, our political and our patriotic
education. It includes eveiything that has come
to i,is by teaching from our ancestors and predeces-
sors.

Within it, therefore, are to be found the formu-
lated memories of codes of right conduct, codes of
ethical precepts and of ideals. These when acquired
in early life may have been repressed and lost sight
of by the individual who, in later years, developed
in an environment govenied by antagonistic codes
or allowed himself to be governed by instinctive
impulses and interests of a conflicting character.
But nevertheless they may still be subconsciously
conserved ready to be called again into being by
favoring influences.

A great mass of such experiences we conceive
of as deposited as memories and dispositions to
behavior, dispositions that may strive to find ex-
pression below the threshold of consciousness in
the subconscious realm.

290 The Creed of Deutschtum

And then among the experiences of the inner
life must be reckoned the strivmgs and conflicts of
the soul — all that pertain to the innermost sanc-
tuary of personality and character, the intimate
communings with self, the doubts and fears and
scruples pertaining to the moral, religious and other
problems of life, and the struggles and trials and
difficulties which beset its paths; the internal con-
flicts of the soul with the world, the flesh and the
devil — conflicts which each individual may have
undergone in efforts to adapt himself to the con-
flicting cii'cumstances of his real life.

Memories of all these inner experiences, and of
these and other unsolved problems of life are de-
posited in the subconscious mind. Sometimes it hap-
pens that, as in sudden religious conversion, they
undergo subconscious incubation or reasoning and
burst out into flower as a sudden realization of a
religious truth.

By the creative force of all these life's experi-
ences cooperating with the inborn primitive instincts
— inborn in every individual — the subconscious
mind is formed.

And out of the subconscious mind, as the acquired
experiences of life, and these instincts are evolved
and organized those tendencies, traits, ideals, and
habits of mind and action which we term personal-
ity and character. I would, indeed, emphasize the
primitive instincts because, besides all these ac-
quired dispositions to behavior, there are, of course,
inherited dispositions, by which we understand the

A World Consciousness and Future Peace 291

primitive instinctive impulses coming from all the
inborn instincts of human nature. I mean the in-
stincts of fear, and love, and anger, and aversion,
and the sexual life, and their kind which motivate
human nature.

The Subconscious as the Dynamic Source of
Conduct

But a small fraction only of all these subconscious
memories emerge as conscious processes of thought.
The greater portion remain beneath the threshold
and tend, unconsciously, to shape and determine
our conscious processes — our judgments, ideals, be-
liefs, conventions, points of view, habits and the
tendencies of our mental lives. Whence these come,
how they were born, we often have long ceased
to remember. For they have not only their roots
but the springs which motivate them deep down
in the subconscious past. Indeed there is reason
to believe that in profound thought it is the sub-
conscious that does the real work. Drawing upon
the deposited experiences of the past for the con-
scious needs of the moment, it thnists up into con-
sciousness for consideration a selected series of ger-
mane ideas. From these our consciousness at such
moments does little more tlian choose those judged
adequate to meet the conditions of the problem.

As I said at the beginning, though we cannot by
conscious effort attain to all our subconscious knowl-
edge, yet, by special devices, like profound media-

292 The Creed of Deutschtum

tion, abstraction, r every, etc., we can bring a large
amount to the full light of consciousness.

Thus it comes about that our reactions to the
environment, our moral and social conduct, our sen-
timents and feelings, our points of view and atti-
tudes of mind — all that we term character and per-
sonality— are predetermined by mental experiences
of the past by which they are developed, organized
and conserved in the subconscious mind. We react
with hatred or with love, with loyalty or disloyalty,
with sympathy or with aversion, to the traits, or
character, or principles, or ideals, or behavior of
some other being, or group of beings, or nation,
because in the past there have been incorporated
in our personalities and conserved in our subcon-
scious minds sentiments, points of view, ethical prin-
ciples, habits of mind, desires, tendencies, primitive
instincts, etc., in harmony with or antagonistic to
them. We are thus the offspring of our past and
the past is the present. It may be that in certain
cases such reactions are, as the newer psychology
teaches, the outcome, the conscious expression of
unrecognized conflicts with subconscious strivings
or self-reproaches, if you like. But that is a detail
of mechanisms with which we need not concern our-
selves here as it does not affect the fundamental
principle.

A World Consciousness and Future Peace 293

THE COLLECTI^^ CONSCIOUSNESS

Thus far I have been concerned with the devel-
opment of the consciousness pecuHar to the indi-
vidual— his personality.

But an individual is a unit in a community, and
in the development of his personality he acquires
systems of ideals and habits of mind and actions
which are not peculiar to himself but are common
to the community — i. e., to a group of individuals
united by common ties, and associations, and tra-
ditions and interests. These systems may be called
a collective consciousness, because they are possessed
in common by a collection of individuals. Hence
it is that we have what is commonly spoken of as
the social consciousness. It needs but a little
thought to appreciate that this embodies established
habits of thought and ideals and sentiments which
underlie the customs, manners and etiquettes, the
habits and modes of living peculiar to social groups,
the social, philanthropic and other obligations of
one individual to another and to the body of the
community; the accepted principles of social mor-
ality. In recognition of such a collective conscious-
ness and the social conduct regulated and deter-
mined by it, there has come into being a specialized
field of study known as social psychology.

As there are many different kinds of social

294 The Creed of Deutschtmn

groups, and as difFerent groups become united into
larger groups with common ties, so there are many
different collective consciousnesses, or community
consciousnesses.

Types of Collective Consciousness

There is the family consciousness in which are
embodied, among much else, ideals of affection and
loyalty of each member to each of the others and
to the whole as a unit.

There used to be the clan consciousness of feudal
times. There is the caste consciousness, such as
was that of the samurai of Japan, of the Brahmins
of India, the ancient noblesse of France, the knights
of the days of King Arthur in England; and there
is that of the military caste of Germany to-day,
and the democracy of America; and so on.

More important for us to-day from a political
point of view and of modern civilization is the civic
community consciousness common to groups of in-
dividuals united for purposes of commercial, indus-
trial and social interests and orderly government.
Thus the citizens of Tokyo and eveiy city have
a civic consciousness. And still more important
there is in every nation a state or national conscious-
ness.

The Development of a Collective Consciousness

Now the first point that I would like to make
is that the same principle underlying the devel-

A World Consciousiiess and Future Peace 295

opnient of the consciousness peculiar to the indi-
vidual and characteristic of his own personality
brings about the organization of a collective con-
sciousness. But here it is the creative force of
common experiences. Through a common ethical
and social education, and, in the case of political
groups, political education, common habits of
thought, common sentiments and ideals, common
aversions, common desires, and common habits of
action are established and firmly conserved in the
consciousness of the members of the group. Sim-
ilarly a common point of view and a common atti-
tude of mind towards the circumstances of the so-
cial organization and of everyday life become de-
veloped. And, most important, as I shall presently
point out, things and ideas of common experience
become possessed of a common meaning for every
individual.

Further, out of a collective consciousness by the
force of common ideals and common desires, there
necessarily develops a unity of thought, and com-
mon will which impel towards uniformity of be-
havior. But all is not explicitly conscious. The
processes of the mind and conduct, in losing their
plasticity and becoming fixed, necessarily become
largely matters of habit and of second nature;
which means that they have become organized be-
low the threshold of consciousness and have their
roots and sources of energy in subconsciously con-
served experiences of the past. Each one of us
would find it difficult or impossible to explain why

296 The Creed of Deutschtum

he has the same viewpoint as the rest of the com-
munity, why the same ideals, the same desires, the
same will ; why he regulates his conduct in the same
way towards everyday life. He would give you
undoubtedly an explanation, reasons that seem
plausible to himself, but the real reason is that his
social and ethical education have left dispositions to
thought, dispositions to action^ — sort of phono-
graphic records^ — in his subconsciousness, out of
which have crystallized, as a sort of resume, habit
reactions. These govern him in spite of himself,
even though he struggles hard against their im-
pulses. And this is also in large part the case be-
cause through education the primitive instinctive
impulses of human nature have been enlisted and
harnessed to serve the habits of the social ideals,
or brought under control and repressed in accord-
ance with the aims of the community conscious-
ness.

Furthermore we see the collective mind manifest-
ing the same reactions to subconscious processes as
does the individual mind. Thus we frequently see
the consciousness of a community or nation react-
ing to the conduct of another community or nation
with aversion or hatred, just as Germany does
to-day towards England. The ostensible and given
reason is because of some alleged immorality of
conduct, like hypocrisy, that shocks the common
ideal. But the real reason is because of a common
baffled subconscious desire, or jealousy, or fear, dic-
tated perhaps by self-interest and unacknowledged,

A World Consciousness and Future Peace 297

to which aversion or hatred is only the common
conscious reaction.

A Common Meaning to Ideals Essential to a Col-
lective Consciousness

The unity of the collective mind depends in no
small degree upon ideas acquiring a common mean-
ing for all the members of the community. This
principle has far-reaching consequences. I do not
refer to the dictionary meaning, or the etymolog-
ical meaning, but rather to the meaning which ideas
comiote through their associations and implications.
The meaning of the national flag of every nation
is easily defined in a dictionary as a piece of cloth
of a certain color and design, but it has, over and
above this, an additional patriotic meaning for all
the people of that nation which it has for the people
of no other. And the meaning, when it is awakened,
sends a thrill of emotional impulses throbbing
through the veins which no dictionary meaning
could do. And likewise patriotism, duty, morality,
virtue, ti*uth, honesty, valor, humanity, culture, and
such ideas too often connote a different meaning to
people of different communities and different na-
tions, as we unfortunately see exemplified in the
present war. And similarly ideas of relationship
like wife, father, emperor, subject, citizen; concep-
tions such as God, religion, temple, connote differ-
ent meanings to different people, individually or
collectively; and so on. And thus it is that ac-

298 The Creed of Deutschtum

cording as ideas have a common meaning in this
sense, they play a large part in determining the
unity of the social consciousness, on the one hand,
and variations in the customs, manners and habits
of different communities.

Let us not forget that it is one's own personal
experiences of life that give that special connoted
meaning to ideas which is peculiar to each one of
us, and therefore that shape your and my points
of view and attitudes of mind towards the life about
us. And according as these experiences are unique
for each of us or are shared by the other members
of the community, will the meaning of a given idea
and the point of view and attitude of mind be purely
personal or common to a group of individuals as
part of a collective consciousness. Consider, for
example, the difference in meaning of the word
"son" for you and for me, according as the context
shows it to mean your son or my son. Your son
means something more and different to you than
to me. Why? Because a large number of personal
and intimate experiences have woven or systema-
tized about the idea many sentiments and memories
which give it a peculiarly personal meaning for you:
and correspondingly in my case. And so our points
of view and attitudes of mind towards your son and
my son are different. But there is also a social
meaning which we share in common. This is be-
cause, besides those experiences, intimate and per-
sonal, peculiar to ourselves, there are many experi-
ences associated with this idea of filial relationship

A World Consciousness and Future Peace 299

which are common to most members of the com-
munity. These are derived from a common social
education and enviromnent. They may be ideas
held in common of paternal and filial duty and
obligations and affections and inheritance, etc. In
this way there emerges a collective meaning which
belongs to the collective consciousness. The ex-
periences which provide this connoted meaning is
called in psychological language the "setting" or
"apperceptive mass." But there could be no "set-
ting" or "apperceptive mass" and no persistent con-
noted meaning to ideas — no persistent point of view
— unless life's experiences were conserved when out
of mind as subconscious dispositions.

This is one of the principles according to which
the points of view and attitudes of mind and ideals
of different communities — the collective conscious-
ness of coimnunities — may differ or be identical re-
garding even the fundamentals of the social organ-
ization and conduct. According to differences in
the settings appear differences in the ideals of the
collective consciousness of different communities,
whether of a circmnscribed locality or a nation.
Such differences underlie the variations in the codes,
customs, manners and etiquette of the different
classes of society and of nations.

I hardly need say that the formation of a col-
lective consciousness regarding many matters begins
in child-life in the home; regarding others, such as
political ideals, later in life in the social world. In
child-life moral and social ideals begin to be formed.

300 The Creed of Deutschtum

The formative influences here are the family, the
school and social environnient. The active forces
are on the one hand repressive, and on the other
creative. Either force may consciously or uncon-
sciously be directed by the environment. Both,
of course, are in principle educational. I suppose
that in no country does repression play so dom-
inant and large a part as in Japan. By repression
the instinctive inborn impulses and tendencies in
conflict with the ideals of the collective conscious-
ness are inhibited and kept in check, and thus pre-
vented from forming habits. On the other hand by
the creative force of education ideas are instilled
and systematized into a collective ideal that shall
be a habit of thought. But from childhood and
even infancy the individual begins to undergo re-
pression and to accumulate the creative experiences
that are to form the meaning of his ideas and estab-
lish his points of view. Many of these are the basis
upon which manners, customs and etiquette rest.
Indeed he is permitted, or directly required, to have
these experiences because they are either the nec-
essary resultant of the already existing habits of
society or are demanded by society.

Is it any wonder then that nations have a dif-
ficulty in understanding, and therefore have a lack
of sympathy with the customs and manners and
ideals of one another? Ideas through differences
in the apperceptive mass come to have a different
meaning for different nations. Even those of fath-
er, mother, son, daughter, virtue, morality, set in a

A World Consciousness and Future Peace 301

mass of different associated ideas of duties, obliga-
tions, etc., have acquired social meanings that show
marked variations for each nation corresponding
with the social customs and codes of each, such as
those of marriage and inlieritance. That which is
repressed by the social consciousness of one peo-
ple may be entirely neglected or encouraged by
that of another. In this particularly the Oriental
and Occidental nations stand sharply contrasted.
Note, as a simple example, nudity which is strongly
repressed in everyday life by Occidentals, but is
disregarded by Orientals so that it becomes a com-
monplace fact of daily life for the child as well as
adult. The result is that while with the former
nudity has a meaning that excites lively reactions
from its apperceptive mass — the social root ideas
which have been both its source and the repressing
force — with the latter it arouses no more emotional
reaction than would pots, kettles and pans. Like-
wise exposure of the face with Moslems has a mean-
ing and causes reactions that belong to exposure
of other parts of the body with people having other
social codes. It is impossible, therefore, for one
nation to completely understand the meaning of
many social ideas of another nation, and therefore
the corresponding points of view, without acquir-
ing the same apperceptive mass — that is to say,
without undergoing the same social education from
childhood to adult life.

Through this same principle we find the difficulty
of some nations — nations that are composed of poly-

302 The Creed of Deutschtum

glot people, racially and in stock heterogeneous, —
acquiring a national consciousness rich in common
ideals. Such common ideals) as exist are, for the
most part, instinctive and of the kind found in
primitive tribes. They may be limited to defense
of the national domain against encroachments of
territory or defense against military aggressions
upon national sovereignty and national interests.
Such, for example, must be the case of the Austrian
Empire with its polyglot people — Magyar, Ger-
mans, Bohemians, Roumanians, Slovenes, Slovaks,
Serbs, Croats, and others. The same difficulty be-
sets, even if in less degree, the United States, with
its one hundred millions of people drawn from every
race on the globe and now in the "melting pot."
Out of that melting-pot will come some day a peo-
ple with a national consciousness, common ideals,
which will be the spiritual inspiring force of the
nation. The same difficulty may arise even within
homogeneous nations, wherein the disintegrating
influences of modern economic, individual and po-
litical development have created heterogeneous
class divisions based upon demoralizing social phi-
losophy and selfish conflicting interest to the disre-
gard of the interest of the national whole. Under
such conditions the national consciousness becomes
shorn of many of its most spiritual, amalgamating
and inspiring ideals that give unity and force to a
nation. Among these are ideals of personal self-
sacrifice at the behest of national duty, the obliga-
tion of the individual to subordinate private rights

A World Consciousness and Future Peace 303

and selfish interests to the good of the State and
the spiritual obligation of universal service in what-
ever field and wherever required by the State for
its safety. In such a situation of disintegrated
ideals England awoke at the outbreak of this war,
and wondered with the whole world at her internal
weakness. Nations, like individuals, must some-
times be tried in adversity to find themselves, to re-
cover their ideals. And so England in the bap-
tism of calamity has found herself, and in the find-
ing has acquired ideals that have crystallized the
soul of the nation into a spiritual force.

The Social Consciousness as the Regulator of
Society

The second point I want to make is that the col-
lective consciousness of the social organization — ^the
social consciousness — plays a greater part in gov-
erning and regulating society than laws, or the
military or police forces of even the most auto-
cratic government. And this it does through the
development of those habits of mind and action
that underlie social customs and of an instinctive
sense of social obligation which is the foundation
of society. Lord Haldane, the former British Min-
ister of War, dwelt upon this fact in a remarkable
address just a year before the present war, and
pointed out, as I shall also later argue, that it is
not chimerical to hope that through the interna-
tional extension of this type of collective conscious-

304 The Creed of Deutschtmn

ness, it may become a common consciousness of
nations — a world consciousness. If so, the duties
and obligations of one nation to another may be
regulated by it, and future wars prevented.

He laid stress upon the fact that the Germans
have a word which he thought may be used to desig-
nate this particular field of the social consciousness.
It is Sitthchkeit. The German philosopher Fichte
has defined Sitthchkeit as "those principles of con-
duct which regulate people in their relations to
each other and therefore have become matters of
habit and second nature at the stage of culture
reached, and of which, therefore, we are not ex-
plicitly conscious." But Sitthchkeit implies moral
principles and it would seem preferable not to at-
tempt to define too narrowly those principles, and
therefore the kind of customs of society which per-
form this function. The fact requiring emphasis
is that social customs become so much matters of
habit that we are not explicitly conscious of the
sense of social obligation and other principles which
compel obedience to tliem.

This field of the social consciousness embraces a
code of social ethics and of manners and customs
to which the conduct of each member of the com-
munity must be conformed under penalty of the
social tabu. And it embraces what we call the social
conscience in which are crystallized the ideals, the
soul of the community. It manifests itself through
that great and powerful arbiter of private and
community conduct. Public Opinion — the opinion

A World Consciousness and Future Peace 305

of the collective consciousness. The code of the so-
cial consciousness embodies or connotes duties and
obligations which each citizen owes to society and
the common welfare and each other. It embodies
customs and manners which respect the rights and
liberties and happiness which every citizen is en-
titled to enjoy without molestation by his fellows.
It is thus a system of thought and customs based
upon common points of view and attitudes of mind
towards community life, grown into habit, and
under which social customs have become established.
As the social conscience it is the censor which pun-
ishes with the moral reprobation of public opinion
infringement by the individual of those customs and
of the social codes which the social conscience has
established.

Out of this ethical and social system there de-
velops a unity of thought and a common ideal and
"common desire which can be made to penetrate
the soul of the people and to take complete pos-
session of it."* And necessarily there follows in
consequence of psychological laws a "general will
with which the will of the good citizen is in ac-
cord." This will of the conmiunity (inspired by
the common ideal and desires) is common to all
the individuals composing it. Herein lies the power
of public opinion to which all governments bow and
which all governments seek for their own support.
Public opinion contains the potential common will
which if not heeded will enforce the ideals of the

* Haldane.

306 The Creed of Deutschtum

social conscience.

To realize the truth of all this we have only to
examine our own daily social habits and customs
and behavior in relation to society. We then see,
although we are not explicitly aware of it, that these
are dictated by the social consciousness and not by
our own personal desires. For if we imagine any
radical departure from them we at once feel within
us the deterring force of social criticism.

It is interesting to note that such a collective
conseiousness, in principle, is analogous to Bushido,
which Professor Nitobe has so charmingly ex-
plained to English readers was "a code of moral
principles which the knights were required to ob-
serve in the regulation of the ways of their daily
life as well as in their vocation." Only Bushido was
the collective consciousness of a caste, while "Sitt-
lichkeit" is that of a whole community or state or
nation.

jSTow it is a commonly accepted fact, as Lord
Haldane pointed out, that the citizen is governed
in his social conduct only to a relatively small ex-
tent by statutory laws and physical force, on the
one hand, and by the dictates of his own individual
conscience and his instinctive desires and impulses
on the other. To a much larger extent he is gov-
erned by the more extensive system of the collective
consciousness whether of the civic, state or national
community. Even laws, in a democracy at least,
must be the expression of the comrnunity conscious-
ness, that is to say, of public opinion and the com-

A World Consciousness and Future Peace 307

moil will, or else they cannot be enforced, and it
is really this collective consciousness that is the pow-
er behind the law. And still more is it true that
the individual in his everyday life is regulated and
governed not by law, but by habits of mind and
customs and codes. From the moment we rise in the
morning to the time we go to bed at night our social
behavior is governed not by legal law but by cus-
toms and habits. Nearly everything we do, even
the time of getting up and the time of going to bed,
as well as the kind of bed we sleep in — whether
we lie on the floor as in Japan or on a bedstead
as in the western world ; what shall we do and what
we shall not do, and the way we shall do it; our
manners and behavior towards one another; the
way we shall live, our ceremonies and our etiquette ;
in short our daily conduct is regulated by customs
established by the principles of the social codes.
These become second nature, almost automatic and
instinctive. The}'^ are, therefore, governed by sys-
tems of mental dispositions organized in the mind
by the social education.

Indeed, from the very beginning of social life
in the nursery, education consists in the repression
of the barbaric instincts with which every child is
bom, bringing the savage impulses of his nature
under control and adapting the child and the man
to the customs and ideals of the civilization to which
he belongs: in other words, to developing in him
the community consciousness with its habits of mind
and behavior.

308 The Creed of Deutschtum

Every child is born a savage; he only acquires
culture and the common ideals and the cominon will
of the social conscience.

The collective consciousness, then, is the founda-
tion of the social organization; without it the or-
ganization would fall to pieces. If this be so, is it
not because of the lack of an international collective
consciousness, one of ethical codes and possessed in
common by all the great peoples of the world^ — a
world consciousness^ — that the world to-day has
fallen to pieces in this holocaust of war?

A World Consciousness

What hope does psychology hold out to civiliza-
tion? The common ideals of a collective conscious-
ness respect and protect the rights of individuals
and regulate their relations to one another within
the nation. May it not be that, with time, fostered
by systematic worldwide teaching, there may be de-
veloped an international consciousness, or world
consciousness so far as concerns international rela-
tions? And may it not be that the principles of
such a consciousness will regulate the nations in
their relations to one another to the same extent
that the social and national consciousness within a
single nation regulate the relations of the people
to one another, and, in the United States to-day,
the relations of the sovereign states of the Amer-
ican Union to one another? In such a world con-
sciousness there would grow up common habits of

A World Consciousness and Future Peace 309

mind that would become second nature- — common
points of view, common ideals of right and wrong
in the dealings of one nation with another.

Likewise conceptions of humanity, of liberty and
of the obligations of one people to another would
have a common meaning, which is not the case to-
day. In a consciousness of this kind, among the
international habits of thought would be that of re-
specting the rights and interests of other nations
whether large countries like China or small ones
like Serbia, and the habit of repressing desires
which have for an object the selfish aggrandizement
of a nation at the expense of weaker ones. Such a
world consciousness would mean desire, grown into
habit and customs, to respect the rights of foreign
peoples under international law, which, in turn,
would be truly the expression of world ideals and
desires, not of selfish interests as to-day, and the
habit of looking to arbitration and conciliation to
compose the conflicting interests of nations. The
imponderable force of such a consciousness would
offer the strongest support to international law —
the power behind the law — and out of such ideals
and such desires, when established, there would nec-
essarily develop a general will to peace and a will
to fulfil the obligations imposed by the ideals.

Theoretically the attainment of a world con-
sciousness of this kind is psychologically possible,
and if ever attained it would necessarily have the
same binding force in regulating international con-
duct as has the social consciousness within a nation

310 The Creed of Deutschtum

to-day. To reach such an end the old world-habit
of mind — the habit of thinking in war terms, of
turning at first thought to war as a necessary means
of settling international disputes, must be broken.
A world conscience will be the censor which, like
the social censor, will threaten with the tabu a
breach of treaties of international customs, codes
and habits of conduct. The ideals of the German
autocracy and of the German military caste as
taught, by their philosophers and publicists like
Treitschke and Nietzsche and military writers like
Bernhardi and their Kaiser, such ideals as "Might
makes Right," "World Empire or Downfall," "It
is the duty of great nations to make war on weak
nations," "Little nations have no rights which pow-
erful nations are bound to respect," and "Nothing
shall happen in this Avorld without Germany being
consulted," in short "Kultur" and the worship of
force, all such militaiy ideals must give place to
the ideals of that collective consciousness of the
German people that govern them in their relations
to each other within the Empire and to a newly
created collective consciousness of the world. The
war attitude of mind of the German autocracy and
military caste, which, like a mental disease, has per-
meated and taken possession of the soul of the Ger-
man people in its attitude towards other nations,
must give place to a world consciousness.

If such a world consciousness should be devel-
oped, one nation will understand another because
the ideals of the common consciousness will have

A World Consciousness and Future Peace 311

the same meaning. We shall think in the same lan-
guage though we do not speak it. It is not through
militarism, nor by piling up armaments, nor by a
"league to enforce peaee" that a world, peace can
be perpetually maintained. Such methods can be
only temporary. Nor in the future when all na-
tions shall be equally armed to the teeth and all
the peoples of all the nations mobilized into armies,
as wdll be the case after this war, can even just
aspirations be attained and international disputes
and conflicts of interest be settled by arms, be-
cause there must result a dead-lock of force. Some
other mode must be found. May not these legiti-
mate aims be reached without war when the great
nations arrive at an international consciousness,
with common ideals, a common understanding, and
a common will.f

A world consciousness in international relations
— that is the vision I see, the dream that psychol-
ogy permits us to have. May that dream come
time !

t The thesis of such a world consciousness which Lord Haldane ably
presented from a legal standpoint and which I have endeavored to
develop along ps_ychological lines necessarily, of course, assumes the
cooperation of an international police of some kind, just as the social
consciousness is supplemented by a civic and national police. There
are "Apache" or bandit nations as there are bandits within the social
organization of every nation, and in the case of revolutions the rights
of foreign nationals must be protected from mob violence.

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